


Long Shadows Timeline

by Leia_Naberrie



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-24 20:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leia_Naberrie/pseuds/Leia_Naberrie
Summary: This is Long Shadows, with the scenes re-arranged in chronological order. I will be updating as every new chapter is posted. Which means that the chapter order will keep getting moved around.  Oh, and in case it isn't obvious - spoilers for the "main" fic. There are some scenes that will occur earlier in the timeline that are revealed later in the main story.





	1. April 2013 (Chp 10) Prison World 1903

**Author's Note:**

> Even the chapter titles are spoilers. You have been warned.

** April 2013  **

The heretics, the witch-vampire creatures that Jo described so graphically, were awake. 

Bonnie knew this the moment she stumbled over the thin, pale creature huddled in a heap on the snow, a threadbare blanket thrown over his body. He was so still, so silent, his aura so dimmed. The tracking spell she had conjured with his twin’s blood had led her to him. Otherwise Bonnie would have been sure he was dead. 

“Kai… Kai… _Kai_!” 

She struggled to turn him around to work the reviving spell. She barely recognized him. Under crudely hewn scruff, his face was worn and tired and the bulk he had picked up after the 1994 prison world had whittled away. 

Then there were the bites. On his neck. His wrists between sleeves and gloves. Even his _temple_… Who knew where else? 

So many bites. 

She had found Kai Parker exactly as she had expected, exactly as she had hoped. 

Bonnie had wanted to kill this man, to feel the satisfaction of twisting that knife through his chest and watching the life drain out of his eyes. Only then did she believe that she would ever know peace. The peace she had lost trapped in his prison, slowly losing her mind, as she succumbed to the ghosts and the voices that plagued her.

When he had escaped, she felt cheated. 

But later when she had been chanting under the Northern Lights, with the other three beside her, she had looked up at the sound of his cry, seen the devastation in his face, and she had been glad that he didn’t die. 

It had been _so much_ sweeter to abandon Kai Parker to suffer the same isolation he had condemned her to. To trap him in an empty world, with nothing but his own guilt and demons for company. 

Before she vanished from 1903, Bonnie had watched Kai’s face break with utter desolation and she had felt happier than she had ever felt in … many, many years.

It hadn’t lasted. 

That same night, Bonnie was told about Lily Salvatore’s travelling companions, and she once again felt that her revenge had been thwarted. All she could think of was that a sociopathic witch and a band of evil vampires would go together like butter and jam. Fear creeped into Bonnie’s heart at the thought of Kai escaping. Because he would come after her, she had no doubt about that. And he would be ruthless. 

So she had to figure out how to keep him there forever. Already, Lily Salvatore was breathing down Bonnie’s neck, demanding for the release of her family. Bonnie stalled as much as possible but she knew it was only a matter of time before the woman’s polite insistence turned violent.

It was tempting to assume that all she needed to do was to destroy the Ascendant, and the passageway to the Prison World would be sealed away forever. But she had also assumed that the key ingredient to powering the Ascendant was Bennett _magic_, not Bennett _blood_. That hadn’t turned out too well for her. For all Bonnie knew, the _Ascendant_ was the seal to the Prison World and destroying it was the equivalent of detonating its door, letting the inmates free. To do this properly, she would need to consult with the architects of the Prison. She would need to talk to a Gemini witch.

Liv Parker and the rest of her coven had gone into hiding when Luke died, which left Josette Laughlin, formerly Parker, as Bonnie’s only option. Bonnie paid a visit to Dr. Laughlin, informed her that her estranged brother had changed address, and asked her how to make that permanent.

That was how Bonnie learnt four things: first, that Josette had no idea that had brother had been trapped in a Prison World all this while; second, that the life of the leader of the Gemini Coven was tied to the lives of all the witches and wizards of the coven, from the oldest member to the youngest – even the unborn baby in Jo’s womb; third, a new word - _heretics_.

Lastly, that she, Bonnie, rather than finding a way to lock Kai in the 1903 Prison World, would have to find a way to bring him back.

Bonnie hadn’t wanted to believe it, had refused to take the word of her nemesis’s twin sister at face value. She had done her own homework, digging into Sheila’s old grimoires. Had even ended up sharing her plans with Damon, against her own judgment, if only to get access to the spell-books in the Salvatore library. After hours of research, she had finally found the obscure reference in one of Jonas Martin’s grimoires that confirmed the truth of Jo’s words.

Bonnie’s revenge versus the lives of hundreds of innocent people.

It wasn’t a choice.

He had barely been gone long enough for her to revel in her victory over him. The ghosts had not stopped plaguing her. The voices in her head had not stopped talking. 

But just like that, she was robbed of any chance of peace. 

At least, she took comfort from the thought of Kai suffering under the hands of merciless heretics. If Jo’s story was true, then vampires with their own magic would not be so easy for the sociopath to make friends or bargain with. Bonnie hoped that he had somehow woken them up. A troop of hungry, desiccated vampires. And Kai the only living thing in sight.

She hoped that they had drained him to within an inch of his life.

Barely five minutes after she landed in that cold world, she found Kai Parker: a crumpled figure on the snow, suffering from acute anemia, exposure and multiple bite wounds. His magical essence was so depleted that it barely registered when she prodded it.

Drained within an inch of life.

Bonnie had found Kai exactly as she imagined. Exactly as she had hoped. This was supposed to make her happy. This was supposed to help her find peace. 

The reality made her sick.

* * *

**April 2013**

About fifteen minutes after she found Kai Parker’s body in the snow, Bonnie finally felt she had moved them to a place safe enough to stop. Even with magic, dragging along the dead weight of a six feet plus man through the snow was no joke. Keeping them camouflaged had also taken its toll. But she didn’t know what to expect when she revived him and if he was going to attack her on instinct, she needed them to be in a place where they were less likely to both get caught; and she could, hopefully, talk him down from his rage.

She stretched out her senses now, enveloping everywhere within a mile. If anything stepped into that radius, she would know.

She stared down at the unconscious man in the snow, scowling. It would be so much easier if she could do this without having to wake him up. Heaving a huge sigh, she knelt down beside him, and placed her hands over his back.

He was still wearing the same clothes he had arrived in. She made out the rips in his jeans and coat where her knife had gone through.

Swallowing hard, she closed her eyes and chanted softly. The revival spell she used was the strongest one she knew, and she augmented it with Expression to be sure. It should send Kai to his feet with enough energy to burn through for hours. Enough for both of them to get to the designated spot, do the Ascension spell and kiss this prison world goodbye. 

She felt the magic working, and stopped, taking her hands back. She placed her left hand flat on the snow, but kept a hex hovering at the tips of her gloved fingers; her right hand brushed against the hilt of the knife under her jacket. Any moment now, Kai was going to jump up like a jack in the box, take one look at her, and attack. She’d have to immobilise him, then explain her presence and give him the choice to either come along without violence or …

Well, she would think of something. 

She heard him stir, and grew even tenser. But he just slowly rolled to his back, his breathing changing as he shivered. His lids finally opened, and a pair of grey eyes stared at her.

For a few moments, they just looked at each other. Kai’s face remained blank, and his shattered aura barely stirred.

“Kai…” Bonnie asked finally, tentatively, half-worried, half-wary as she touched his chest gently. Worried because she feared he had been so badly sapped of blood and magic that even her spell, which was the magical equivalent of an adrenaline shot, hadn’t been enough.

Wary because every single time that Bonnie Bennett and Kai Parker got physically close to each other, it always ended with one of them getting stabbed.

It was like a demented game of tag. And – what were the odds? – Bonnie was It.

After a few more moments of staring blankly at her, his face – thin, under weeks of unkempt facial hair – stretched into a smile she could only describe as idiotic.

“You’re wearing far too many clothes, Bon.”

Her jaw dropped.

But Kai helpfully elaborated, his voice hoarse but still managing to retain its annoyingly familiar singsong lilt. “I didn’t just hit rock bottom. I kept going. I’m at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. No, further than that. I am practically in the Earth’s core. I’m swimming in prehistoric magma right now. If magma was ice-cold, instead of hot.”

“Kai…”

“The least the universe can do is deliver fantasies to my exact specifications, don’t you think? Now the Bonnie I asked for was wearing a red bik-.”

“I’m not some wet dream, you jerk,” she shouted, horrified, yanking her hand back. He had been pushing ever so slightly against it. “Get up!” And for emphasis, she struck him with her open palm and a bolt of magic.

“Ow! Can everybody stop assuming I’m into kinky stuff? What the hell kind of fantasy is this?”

“Will you stop calling me that?”

He shook his head, rubbed his eyes with one hand, and glared at her. Then suddenly, he sat up with a yelp, his eyes bugging. “Bonnie?” he yelled. “Are you really here?”

“Yes, you prick. I’m here to rescue you,” she snapped.

He blinked. Looked behind her. Looked over his shoulder. Looked up. Looked everywhere but at her. “No, you’re not.You can’t be,” he said slowly. “They’re playing with my head. They’ve done that before.” He kept _not_ looking at her, and she suddenly realized that he was talking – or trying to talk – to someone close by. “Whose idea was this? Iceman? Cherokee? Ginger-dee or Ginger-dum?”

“Kai…”

“Can’t a man get a little privacy here? I’m not going to last long if you can’t even let me escape into my own head…”

Bonnie slapped him, her gloved palm leaving a red print across his face.

He looked at her then, shock washing over his face. He raised his hand to touch his cheek. “That didn’t feel like a vamp-dream,” he said stupidly. “Why would they put a dream in my head of Bonnie Bennett slapping me? On second thoughts, don’t answer that...”

“Get up, Kai!” she yelled. “We don’t have all day. The Northern Lights are about to start and unless you want your new besties to tag along…”

He was breathing hard now and still staring hard at her, as if he dared not look away or she would disappear. She could see disbelief warring with hope on his face.

The hope was desperate, and painful to look at and she hated herself for feeling even one iota of pity for him. So she forced it down as she got to her feet. “Come on, Kai. Unless you’re enjoying yourself here…?”

Kai swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I swear if this is another twisted mind game, I don’t care what it takes, but I will find out who came up with this fucked up idea and I will rip out their heart.” And his voice was cold and cruel – and she was grateful to hear it because that was the voice of the man she hated beyond measure.

“Good to know.” She leaned over and stretched out her hand. He hesitated for a fraction, then he took it. A frisson of something – magic, probably – passed from his hand to hers, even through the gloves and his eyes locked into her own, making her breath stutter. It took everything in her not to yank away. Instead, she broke that locked gaze and held on firmly. His weight almost dragged her down, and since she wasn’t moving her hand from her knife, she had to work one-handed. But somehow she got them both upright. She let go off his hand the moment he was standing, shaking out the tingles that were climbing from her palm to her elbow.

They stood, staring at each other. Bonnie felt apprehension rising in her gut as she saw the light of realisation, then acceptance dawning in his eyes.

She took a deep breath, and spoke with as much venom as she could muster. “This is only going to work if we work together. My friends are waiting on the other side and if you dare try to kill me or trap me here, I promise you Gemini coven or no coven…”

“Now I know this isn’t a dream,” he said, his equally cold voice cutting through her speech as he stepped towards her. “Forgive me, _Bonster_. I know you have this big threatening speech all rehearsed for me but I’m going to take a rain-check because we need to start running now.”

She glared up at him. “We need to find the Ascendant first, _Kai_.”

His eyes glinted. “I already have it, _Bonnie_.”

That gave her pause, then her suspicions came back. “Let me see it.”

He laughed, tut-tutted. “So you can stab me with a pick-axe and take off?” He was near enough to glare down menacingly at her.

Her hand tightened on her knife. “I came back for you, you jerk.”

His glanced at her hand, and scoffed. “OK, this probably sounds ridiculous, but where you’re concerned, Bonnie, I have trust issues. Crazy, right?”

“Damn it, K-”

“Can we at least move this discussion to somewhere a bit safer?”

“I can sense anything from a mile away. Nothing’s going to surprise me. Show me the Ascendant or I swear, Kai…”

“Fine. Let’s do a locator spell.” He was tugging at his glove. “Since you’re so eager to feel up my chest a-”

And then she felt it step through her perimeter – it was cold and empty and made her think of black holes and vacuums. Made her think of Kai in his prison world every-time he unleashed his power at her. Only this was ten times worse.

And it was moving fast.

Bonnie’s eyes locked with Kai’s, and she saw the stark panic – fear even – in his face.

“Bonnie!”

She felt the air shift as the creature flew toward them – felt its breath almost on her neck. 

And she went flying into the cold ground and only barely registered Kai’s hands shoving her out of the way. She landed with an _oomph, _face down and eating snow. She turned quickly to see the two figures struggling in front of her. The heretic had landed on Kai instead; she could barely make out the creature’s face or if it was even male or female, just silver-blond hair flying as it clung to Kai who was desperately trying to shake it off. Kai’s magic set its coat aflame and it still clung, its teeth digging into his neck.

It yanked itself back with a scream as Bonnie’s aneurysm struck it. It staggered away from Kai, and turned silver eyes to her where she stood with both hands outstretched.

Gold lights were swirling in them.

“Bonnie…! Stop…!” Kai was shouting.

She sent another aneurysm at it and now it laughed, the gold in its eyes glowing brighter. It was a man, tall and large, with sharp high cheekbones. He was beautiful, the way a black hole was beautiful. And he was coming towards her, glee stark on his face.

His hands clamped on her cheeks, rings burning on her cold face, and she felt the rush of magic violently pulled out of her body like a hook in her stomach violently tugging out her guts. Either she had forgotten how it felt when Kai siphoned her. Or this was a hundred times worse.Pain exploded in her head and she fell to her knees, screaming; the creature was falling with her, his hands tight on her face, gold swirling so rapidly in its eyes that it made her dizzy to look. His face was ecstatic.

“Bonnie!”

Her fear reached a crescendo and Expression exploded out of her like a supernova, the volatile power rising with her fear to protect her. The heretic’s face was no longer joyful but suffused with something like fear; its eyes now glowing so brightly that she couldn’t stare at them anymore. She felt his hands tugging _from_ her – like if he was trying to let go but couldn’t. His mouth opened wide in a silent shout.

Her head was still pounding, tears streaming down her face as magic gushed out of her body like her life’s blood. Only infinitely worse.

Then the contact was broken. And she staggered, gasping, to see Kai behind the creature, throwing it into the snow.

It rolled and stopped, in a sitting position. Its mouth was still open, and the horror on its face had only increased with the horror that was now _its_ face. The bright streaks of gold had ripped through eyeballs, and skin. Its veins were lit with gold, and they were bursting in front of Bonnie’s eyes, leaking out magic like water from a puncture skein.

It finally screamed, but it wasn’t words but magic that poured out of its mouth, almost blinding her. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Absentmindedly, she felt Kai near her, and she turned instinctively to hold on to him.

Finally, it imploded, its body collapsing into itself, leaving only a bright mushroom, golden and black, that hovered over it for a moment, then zoomed upwards into the atmosphere.

Bonnie watched it go, heart pounding. Then she turned to look at Kai Parker’s shocked face.

He was so close, that she could see her breath mist over his skin, feel the warmth of his on her face. Both of them were gasping, from cold and shock. He was staring at her with wonder in his grey eyes.

“How did you…” He started, then laughed, looked away, stared back at her. Laughed again. Stared harder.“Bon…”

She could barely make out the words. “Can we go now, Kai?”

He laughed again. She wondered if he was losing it. She felt like if she was. “Thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

**April 2013**

“Come on.”

Bonnie was running as fast as she could through a snowy forest in 1903 Mystic Falls, feeling Expression running through her, lighting her bones like fire. The snow was falling fast now and she could barely make Kai out ahead of her, but she could feel his essence, pulsing brightly and streaked with hers – residue of the healing spell she had used to revive him what now felt like a lifetime ago.

Behind them, she could feel the aura of the heretic ebb as it stirred. She had sensed it a few minutes ago from the distance. But now it was gaining ground on them.

She could have used magic to give herself a boost of speed but that demonstration from that… _creature_… had made her wary, paranoid almost. She dared not release even a single spike of power that could be used against her. She glared balefully at Kai’s back in front of her.

God, how she hated these siphoners. Witches, vampires, the lot of them.

Perhaps it was the sheer fury of her thoughts that made her miss the raised root, and go sprawling into the snow.

_“Bonnie!”_

Pushing past her disorientation, she scrambled to her hands and feet, and tried to stand up. Then she felt a bolt of power and something large and fiery grabbed her, and shoved her back into the snow.

Hair and skin almost the color of ice and teeth that were just as sharp.

_It was the same one._

And with a nauseating jolt, Bonnie remembered that death to a Prisoner of this World was meaningless.

“_Pretty little witch_,” and now _its_ voice was in her head, whispering like a snake’s forked tongue, “_You caught me unawares. My apologies. Now I am primed to indulge in that intoxicating magic you possess so abundantly_.”

She shoved with her hands and a _Motus _that ripped out of her instinctively but it only slid back a few feet, its ice eyes swirling with gold strands of her own power, a macabre smile on its face, then it bent its head and tore through her side.

Bonnie screamed. Her head slammed into the snow and she saw the stars blinking over her, her body on fire as her blood and her magic – brutal, merciless Expression – were sucked out of her wound.

Once again, she felt that wicked tug of power from her body. But this time with the blood, it was worse. How was that even possible?

Then the stars were blocked with something large and black and she felt the teeth ripping out of her flesh. Which made her scream some more.

She scrambled away, her hand already on her side as she chanted something to douse the throbbing. It was barely enough. Beside her, there were sounds of a scuffle, but she was disoriented from the pain and shock of losing both her blood and her magic.

Still, she forced herself to focus, to make out the two figures grappling in the stone. Kai was astride the heretic, his arm swinging repeatedly as he jabbed into the creature with a familiar, wicked-looking blade. But even as she watched, the heretic’s hand shot up, grabbing him by the throat, and the flesh turned red where they touched.

“Ossux!” Bonnie screamed in her head, stretching out her hand and the wrist choking Kai snapped. The heretic hissed as Kai scrambled away.

Her second Ossux flew – right into the heretic’s outstretched hand.

It grinned at her, eyes swirling. “You’ll have my attention in a moment,” it snarled as it splayed its fingers. Bonnie felt the Motus pull her off the ground like a noose around her neck. A tightening noose… The white world turned grey…

Then she was free, falling in a rough, but gentle heap to her feet. She stumbled, but refused to fall, blinking away the dark edges of her vision until she had found Kai’s dark hair and his thin strong hands, burning red where they gripped the other’s face, his thumbs hooked through the sockets, tugging at them. She scooped up a fist of snow in the ground, packed it into a ball, whispered under her breath then lobbed it at the fighting men.

She barely had the strength for a good throw but magic did the rest, sending the ball flying, then flaming and striking the heretic directly at its ear and through. For a moment, the creature was frozen, its hands locked on Kai’s neck, choking him. Then Kai stepped back, pushing him away and the man fell sideways.

There was emptiness in the spaces where his eyes belonged. A few feet away, the ball of scorched blackness rolled to a stop, next to a mess of goo and eyes.

Kai limped to stand in front of her, bending over with his hands on his knees. “Good throw,” he said hoarsely, then broke into a bout of coughing. “An inch off-aim and I’d be the one with snowballs. Get it?” His thin, unshaven face was streaked with mirth. He actually looked like if he was enjoying himself.

Of course, anything was an improvement from being eaten by a bunch of witch-vampires.

“That was the same one that attacked us before, wasn’t it?” she asked him.

His cough sounded like a laugh. “PWR’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

“PWR?”

“Prison World Resuscitation. To make it worse, these suckers don’t die easy.” That was definitely a chuckle. “Suckers? Get it?”

She clenched her fists, felt Expression tingle against her knuckles. “I killed him the first time.”

He scoffed. “You got lucky, caught him off-guard. You saw what happened now. He’ll suck you up like a Slurpee. Better save those Bennett batteries to get us out of here.”

Bonnie thought for a moment. “In 1994, the times you died-”

“-the times you murdered me-”

“It took you at least half a day to wake up. This guy was up and running in …what? A few minutes? Half an hour? How is that possible?”

“I’ve been a bit busy staying alive to make notes on ‘heretics in their unnatural habitat’ but if you want to stick around and observe” - he waved his hand expansively at the winter landscape - “by all means, be my guest.” 

She glared at him, furious that she couldn’t argue the point. “Whatever. Let’s just go.” She got to her feet wearily.

“Gimme a moment. Took a little magic to fight that bastard. And I think your spell is wearing off.”

That was inevitable. She had lost more magic in two short moments than she ever had before.

But they couldn’t wait. Not for one moment. “We have to keep going. The others…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. No worries. You’ll keep me safe.” He winked at her.

Anger and hate rushed through her. He was enjoying this. Her rescuing him. Her saving him. Her risking her life for _his _sake.

She walked up to him, right into his space and saw with satisfaction the way the mirth slid from his eyes, wariness filling its place. “We’ve put one down but the others will soon be at our heels.” Her voice thickened with spite. “I think it’s getting close to their meal-time. Wanna stick around when they get hungry and start looking for their snack?”

His face twisted with anger – his mood change as abrupt as it was familiar and she braced herself for it – the attack that she’d been expecting from the moment he opened his eyes after her spell had revived him.

Perhaps he had been too grateful at being rescued to care that it was Bonnie doing it. Or perhaps he was waiting until the rescue was over to turn on her.

But now looking up at his furious face, she knew he wasn’t waiting any longer.

She actually felt relieved. _Let’s get this over with_. 

Her hand rushed to her belt where her knife…

Her knife was gone.

Immediately, her eyes flew to the spot in the snow where she had seen him stab the heretic –

– _when did he take it? The first attack? Their run? How did I miss it? _–

– She called it to her hand – but a shade too late. She watched in dismay as it landed in Kai’s own magical grip.

He waved it nonchalantly in front of his face, his eyes glinting the same steel-blue as the blade. “Well, isn’t this familiar?”

_‘All I need is Bennett blood…’_

_Standing by that tree stump, watching the light catch his sister’s knife – this same knife – as he tossed it and smiled craftily._

Fear splintered through Bonnie and she shot to her feet, pushing out a _motus _strong enough to send him crashing into a tree.

Or meant to. His free hand caught both hers, and she felt the spell fizzle out. He was yelling something but she was still on attack, readying to push out an aneurysm with her mind… sensing his own magic rise defensively…

When she saw he was holding the knife at her, hilt-first.

She paused, halted magic cackling in the air between them, as she stared from the knife to the man who was all but cursing her with his eyes.

“Take the stupid knife, Bonnie,” Kai panted, shoving it so that it poked her jacket.

She hesitated – what’s the catch? – and he cocked his head, his eyes narrowed mockingly. “Unless you still want to play tag…”

The echo of her own thoughts not long ago rattled her; and Bonnie snatched her hands free, grabbed the knife, pushed it into its sheath in her belt. Trap or not, she’ll figure it out while she had the advantage.

“I swear Kai, if you try anything, anything at all…”

“You’ll… what? Stab me in the back? Serve me up to heretics?”

Her hands curled into fists. For a moment, she and Kai just glared at each other, breathing so hard and angrily that steam clouded between their faces.

He was the one that broke the _impasse_. “We don’t have time for this,” he snarled. Without another word, he picked her up, hissing as her hexed hands burned his coat, and flung her over his shoulder and started running. “You’re slowing us down!”

Part of Bonnie’s brain told her that this actually made sense – with her shorter legs, she was slowing him down and revived as he was, he had a boost of energy that they should put to good use. The other part of her, felt sick from hanging upside down, staring down at endless white, and being in close physical contact with Kai Parker – and that part kept screaming at him to put her down that instant.

He didn’t though and in a few minutes, she stopped screaming for him to drop her and started screaming that he run faster. Because she felt them coming nearer.

They were more. And, curse her ill-timed joke, she was right.

They were hungry.


	2. April 2013 / 1903 & Mystic Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 (2 scenes)

** April 2013 **

_ Mystic Falls, 1903 _

_“Sangima Maerma, Bernos Asescenda.”_

One hand on her torn side, the other tangled up with Kai’s around the Ascendant, she sang the words of the incantation and watched the colours of the Borealis mingle with the red blood in the snow.

She was bleeding, and she was probably dying, the only thing keeping her upright was his arm around her, his body supporting her. He fared barely better. The revival spell she had done on him an hour ago was wearing off and she could feel, from where her cheek rested on his chest, that his heart was slowing.

But all these registered absent-mindedly in her head. Even the bodies littered in a half-circle around her, stirring slightly, barely got her attention.

_“Sangima Maerma, Bernos Asescenda.”_

She was lost in the magic, in the mingling of their auras as they channelled each other, pouring everything they could into the spell. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. The strands of their individual magic seemed to knot into a tight rope that tugged at something deep, down inside her. 

She felt like if her soul was filling, stretching, like skin tight enough to rupture. Did he feel this too? She wondered, even as the lights changed over her head. Even as she could see, vaguely, noting with academic interest, that two of the figures around them were rising.

The question was still echoing in her head, as the colours around blended into white. Their bodies were falling upwards, into the white. 

They were Ascending.

* * *

** April 2013 **

_ Mystic Falls _

She was swimming in an ocean of magic, silver eddies floating over her head as she felt more than she heard the echo of spells. A familiar face, pale-skinned, and dark-haired seemed to peer through the shadows at her – and she felt her heart swell with fear, then she was sinking further into the depths. 

She came to slowly, her mind breaking out of her swirling dreams like a diver resurfacing. Her eyes blinked slowly up at the familiar ceiling above, then she turned her head carefully to take in the yellow window curtains, the matching furniture, and her winter wear on the floor.

The Salvatore’s boarding house. She was lying on her bed, in what had been her room during her stay in 1994. 

Was she back there? She sat up at once, and felt dizzy. Her heart was already jumping, panicking, when she heard voices from the door.

She turned to see his tall figure, half-blocking the doorway. From around his broad shoulders, she could make out a familiar female figure – dark hair, white jacket.

Dr. Jo Laughlin.

Josette Parker.

“-needs rest.Magic and medicine can only do so much. And come to the hospital. You need a transfusion, Kai.”

“If I can stand and walk … ”

“You’re going to drop to the floor the moment I close this door.”

“I forgot how good you are at this, Jo. The concerned doctor slash sister act. Impressive. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you actually gave a damn about me.”

“Kai-”

“I’d give you a hefty tip but I think my wallet’s somewhere in the turn of the last century. Thanks so much for coming. Bye!”

She was still talking when he slammed the door in her face. 

He paused a moment, then he fell to the floor like a ninepin.

Tentatively, Bonnie reached for her magic and felt it, weak and rattled underneath her skin. And, she realized with a mix of relief and regret, it was just her own. She had used up the last of her Expression magic.

Pushing back that thought for another time, she scanned the room for a weapon, or anything that could improvise for one.

“You know, I can practically hear you thinking of a way to attack me?” She started at Kai’s voice. 

He was still sitting on the floor in front of her, leaning on her footboard, but he had turned his head to stare up at her. 

“You have to make up your mind what you want to do with me: slay me or save me? Because if it’s the former, you botched your plan. Unless,” he made a face, “you brought me back to finish the job yourself. Is this a case of ‘no one can kill me but you’ because that’s kinda hot.”

He looked marginally better than he had a few minutes – or hours? or days? She had no idea how much time had passed between leaving the prison world and now – ago. The puncture wounds on his neck had closed, and the paper-white complexion had filled with a _bit_ of colour. He was still pale though, she thought. Dr. Laughlin was right. He needed blood.

Wincing, he pulled himself to his knees, then dragged himself to sit on the foot of her bed. She skidded all the way to the headboard, clutching the blanket with one hand and her magic with the other. 

He noticed. 

“I’m really flattered but right now, I can’t endanger a mouse,” he said bitterly, and grimaced. 

Bonnie hoped he was in considerable pain. 

“How long have we been back? Where is Damon? Elena?” she fired him with questions.

“A few hours. Good question. Where are they, Bonnie? I distinctly remember you threatening me with the fact that your vamp pals were waiting for you on this side, ready to rip out my throat if I pulled a Crocodile Bondee on you.” He snickered darkly. “Get it?”

She glared at him stonily, determined not to even blink at being caught in her bluff, or to let her disappointment show.

Because of some convoluted reasons involving Elena and the Cure, Damon had wanted Bonnie to bring back Lily’s ‘family’ as well – a task that Bonnie had been against long before she understood just what that ‘family’ was. She had kept him out of her plans, leaving only a message at the very last minute before she went into the 1994 Prison, asking that he come to the Salvatore House to wait out her return. She had been hoping that despite their disagreement, he’d have her back.

Clearly, she had underestimated how disappointed, furious even, Damon had been over Bonnie refusing to help Lily.

Kai’s glare had narrowed, turned shrewd and she broke, and looked away.

To her surprise, he didn’t crow. “Whatever,” he said brusquely. “This place was empty when we got back. I barely managed to lug you up here and call Jo. Turns out that apart from her mad medical skills, the good doctor also carries along a vial of vamp blood for emergencies. That’s why you’re not swimming in your own blood, by the way.”

Bonnie touched her side, the memory of canines tearing into her body flashed through her brain. She lifted her blouse and touched the skin. It was unblemished. There was no sign of her ordeal. Even the blood that must have dried there had been cleaned away. 

She glanced at him then and caught his eyes fixed on the patch of skin she had revealed, his mouth gaping slight, his face twisted into an expression she could only describe as yearning.

He saw her staring at him, and looked away, the tips of his ears reddening.

“You’re welcome,” he muttered.

“For what?” She snapped. “Asking Jo to fix me after I got bitten and siphoned saving your life? If anyone should be groveling with thanks, it’s you.”

His eyes snapped back at her, and she recoiled at the sudden fury in them. “I’d prostrate myself on the floor and crawl on my belly right now but I’m a little weak from being used as a blood bag for six weeks. If only I could remember how that happened.” He scrunched his brow in pretend-confusion and then gasped dramatically, his eyes mockingly wide. “Oh wait, I remember! I was stuck in a prison world because you stabbed me and left me there to die!” He snarled the last sentence.

“Now doesn’t that sound familiar?” It was Bonnie’s turn to be sarcastic. “Because I remember you doing the _exact same thing_ to me.”

“So you wanted to punish me? Bit out of proportion, don’t you think? I left you by yourself. You left me to be food to a bunch of monsters. It’s not my fault that you broke after five months and tried to kill yourself. I was in that prison for _eighteen years_, Bonnie! You planned on doing the same thing to me. The only difference was I got out first. So stop acting like you’re some kind of innocent victim!”

Bonnie lifted a hand and threw her magic at him. He caught it, threw it at the window and the glass shattered beneath it. 

Then before she could summon another hex, he had leaned over and grabbed her wrists, holding them painfully in its grip.

“Let go of me!” she shouted.

“Use your magic against me, Bonster and I’ll bleed it out of you.”

She sneered. “So I’m the monster, Kai? Can you hear yourself? I did bleed for you today. I almost died getting you back!”

“Why? Because you felt guilty? Because you cared so much? Puh-leeze. You did it for Jo and the coven or I’d still be there, being passed around like a bowl of soup.”

“You deserve worse! At least, I came back for you. Which was more than you ever did for me.”

He laughed in her face, his eyes completely mad. “Semantics. I almost died trying to bring you back after stranding you there. You nearly died trying to bring me back after leaving me there. We’re even, Bonster,” and he said it like a threat. “All debts settled. All bets off.”

“Even? I never owed you anything!” she snarled, struggling against his grip. “What the hell did you ever do for me but hurt me, and trick me, and abandon me?”

“Your birthday, Bonnie,” he said through gritted teeth.

“What about my birthday?”

“Myself. Almost dying. Saving your life!”

She stopped struggling then to look at him, at the look of fury and hurt on his face. “What. the. hell. are you talking about, Kai?”

Impossibly, his face seemed to get angrier. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought he would siphon her. Then he froze, the anger melting away into confusion. Then shock. Then dawning realization. 

He sat back, and her hands slipped out of his.

She pulled them to her chest at once, twisting them into the blanket that she wrapped protectively around her body. 

“You … don’t know?” he asked, slowly.

“Know what?” she said, trying to bite out the words but they only came out as confused as his did. 

“Your birthday. When you tried to kill yourself. Didn’t Damon or Elena or Jeremy Gilbert tell you what happened? What I … ” he swallowed. “Didn’t anyone tell you what I did?” he asked, very quietly.

“What did you do?”

He stared. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“The spell. Jeremy Gilbert and I came to you. I tried sending everybody but it was too much. With him alone, we could just barely interact physically with your world. But boy, did that take major juice out of me. Then,” he suddenly snorted, “to make things even more interesting, my baby sister ran a poker through me. There I am, bleeding all over Damon’s kitchen, wondering how I survived the merge ceremony to be gutted by Livvie poo of all people. But I keep at the spell because you, Bonnie Bennett are five seconds away from carbon monoxide poisoning. Which is not a bad way to go, all things considered. I should know. I’ve tried them all.” His smile was broken.

Something cold was filling Bonnie, her lungs, her pores. She felt like if she had been sleeping, and someone had grabbed her, thrown her into the deep end of the pool and now she was drowning. 

“Jeremy Gilbert got to you in time to open the garage door.”

She dragged herself out of the bed, almost stumbling onto the floor. He half-stood, trying to reach for her but she dodged his reach, limping backwards and away from him, needing to put as much distance between both of them as possible.

He was lying. He had to be lying. 

She swallowed past the lump that was forming in her throat and told him that. “Stop lying.” 

“The map opened to Nova Scotia on the kitchen floor? Right where you needed it to be to get the idea to go for your ancestor’s magic? How do you think that happened?”

“I thought – the wind … somehow … ”

“The garage door that opened just in time to save your life? Did the wind do that too? That must have been some genius wind.”

_How had that garage door opened?_

Bonnie had asked herself that question once, not too long ago; but this was not the answer she had expected. Or wanted.

“You’re lying.”

He shook his head, laughed bitterly. “Why would I lie? How _can_ I lie about this?”

“To manipulate me. To get into my head.”

“Ask Damon or Elena what happened that day. Ask Jeremy Gilbert, your boyfriend.” 

His voice snagged on the last word but Bonnie barely noticed. Too many thoughts were going through her head. 

Damon had written the notes to Nova Scotia on the map. She had thanked him for them. He hadn’t mentioned Kai. Or Jeremy. Between Caroline’s and Stefan’s humanity crisis and getting Lily out, she and Elena hadn’t even talked about her time in the prison world. 

And as for Jeremy – Bonnie hadn’t had a proper conversation with Jeremy since she got back. They kept missing each other on the phone. Or in all fairness, _she_ kept missing him, deliberately. What could she say to him? She didn’t know who she was anymore, had stopped knowing for many months now. She needed to figure herself out before she could figure out who she was or could be to anyone else.

Kai was still talking. “It was your birthday. They were throwing a party.” He laughed at that. 

She hadn’t known that. Why hadn’t she been told that?

“I needed to send a note to Jo. I asked Elena. She asked for a favour. Damon wanted me to send a message to you. A trade. It was your birthday, he said, and he didn’t even know if you knew.”

“I did,” Bonnie whispered, hoarsely, the memory of the pain of that returning. 

A pressure in her head was building, threatening to burst out of her. She hurt. In her head. In her bones. Everything hurt. 

“I was – I was counting days. I knew.”

He swallowed hard before he continued again. She could see his Adam’s apple bob violently. 

“The Ascendant was too broken to use properly. But I tried to fix it to send them back.”

“It was broken because you destroyed it!” She retorted, clutching at what was familiar. “Damon told me you destroyed it so that no one could ever use it again. You wanted me stuck there forever.”

“I destroyed the Ascendant so that it couldn’t be used to imprison me again.”

“But you also wanted _me_ trapped there, didn’t you, Kai?”

A familiar expression passed over his face.A mixture of anger and hunger. It was the same way he had sometimes looked at her in the prison world. She remembered that day when she had dared him, and he had almost drained her of magic, only letting her go at the last possible moment. He had stared down at her like that then. 

That had been the first time but it hadn’t been the last. 

“I’m right, aren’t I?” She asked him now, her voice shaking. “You wanted to pay me back but you also wanted to keep me there like some kind of caged pet.”

His fists clenched, unclenched on his knees, but he didn’t look away. “I’ve changed, Bonnie. I’m not the same person who-”

“I don’t care!” She cried. Everything _hurt_. She was stretched thin and a hair’s breath from breaking into pieces. “It doesn’t matter! None of it does. There’s nothing you can ever do to make me forgive you.”

Pain flashed across his face. Then he was on his feet and striding to her, backing her right against the wall. 

Her magic hovered at her fingertips. You only got one chance with Kai Parker and she was ready to do considerable damage with hers.

But his only attack was with words.

“Fine.” His voice was deep and dark like the ocean during a storm. “You and I, Bonnie? We’re even now.” 

It sounded like a warning.

Then he was gone. 

Bonnie sank to the floor, bent her head over her knees and sobbed.


	3. May 2013 / Whitmore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8 (2 scenes)

** May 2013 **

_ Whitmore _

The soon-to-be Dr. Jo Saltzman’s bachelorette party was over – well, if one called three women and an empty bar a party. Of course, if Bonnie had taken up the offer that the gorgeous hunk of a stripper had clearly been offering before he left, she’d probably be having her own party of two right now. It was almost a shame, because Elena and Jo were all respectably taken women. She felt like if she was letting the team down.

But the carefree party girl mode – a relic from her old cheerleading days – had long timed out and Bonnie was running on empty, sipping her drink quietly and letting the fake, bright smile on her face fool Elena and Jo into thinking that she gave a damn about the ongoing conversation.

It was something about Elena and Damon and the cure. Honestly, if Bonnie had realized that bringing the cure to them was going to cause such drama, she’d have left the stupid thing in Nova Scotia, circa 1994.

“What’s your opinion, Bonnie?” Elena asked at last.

_About what?_ Bonnie took a big gulp of her glass and tried to think fast.

Thankfully, Elena’s phone buzzed then. “It’s Damon,” she whispered to the others and looking tense, she slipped out to the back of the bar.

Bonnie made a face and hid it behind her glass.

Jo reached out a hand to grab hers.

“You doing OK, Bon?” she asked.

Bonnie grinned broadly. “Just peachy.”

Jo cocked her head in a gesture that reminded Bonnie of her brother. The grin wavered.

“I called my med school classmate. He didn’t get a call from you.”

“Oh, you mean the shrink?” Bonnie said casually. “I forgot about that. I don’t think I really need one, you know what I mean?”

So what if she couldn’t remember the last time she had a good night’s sleep? If it wasn’t nightmares, it was insomnia – the sound of silence, and her own internal musings spinning round and round and round in her brain until she passed out.

She’d get over it. She was Bonnie Bennett. That was what she did.

Jo frowned. “I stand by what I said when you came in for your physical. The ordeal you went through – the isolation – there’s a reason why solitary confinement is a method of punishment for hardened criminals. And that’s not counting what my brother put you through. And before that? Your time as the anchor? What you must have gone through…?”

Bonnie laughed hollowly. “Are you sure you’re not trying to take your friend’s job? I think you could do some part-time as a shrink yourself.”

Jo’s hand on hers became tight.

“Ouch?”

“You did a lot for me, for my entire coven when you went back for Kai.” Bonnie froze at the name. “And that was just you going back. I didn’t expect the heretics… I promise you, Bonnie, I had no idea they were awake. Damon and Elena assured me they weren’t and I couldn’t imagine that Kai would, for any reason, wake them.”

“I don’t think he did that on purpose,” Bonnie said, squirming.

She didn’t want to think about how Kai had been when she found him. About what he must have gone through before she did.

She had had Qestiya’s magic in addition to her own to fight those creatures and even then she had barely made it back alive.

“Turns out that I owed Kai my life anyway,” she mumbled. “So you gave me a chance to pay him back.” Her voice wavered a little. The confused emotions that usually assailed her whenever she dwelt on this – on the idea that Kai, _that anyone had almost died saving her life _\- threatened to overwhelm her.

“Bonnie?”

She took a long draw from her glass, waited until the burn pushed away that dark storm of emotional turmoil for another day. Ignoring the voice whispering _coward_ in her head, she smiled at Jo. “Besides, we’ve had this conversation already. You thanked me. You’ll name your firstborn after me. Yada yada yada.”

“I’m not thanking you again,” Jo said, then she laughed. “OK, maybe I am thanking you a little. But I’m also saying that you need a break, Bonnie. You’ve been through a lot in the past … years now, if Elena’s stories are anything to go by. I went through one traumatic event and I gave up my magic, changed my name and ran away from my family for eighteen years.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Bonnie said and she was only being half-sarcastic.

“Sheila never wanted this life for you,” Jo said sadly. “She did just about everything she could to protect you from the supernatural.”

“Maybe instead of spending all that effort protecting me, she should have spent some more teaching me how to protect myself,” Bonnie said bitterly.

Jo leaned back in her chair, folded her arms and stared at Bonnie.

Bonnie bit her lip, feeling ashamed. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have talked about Grams like that. Sometimes I feel like she was the only person who ever cared about me.” Sadness washed over her. “I miss her. Yet sometimes I’m so angry with her, you know?” She sighed, and shifted in her seat. “Look, I don’t want to spoil your day. I guess the party’s over. You have your beauty sleep to catch up with…”

“It’s good to be angry,” Jo said, cutting her short. “It’s good to _feel_ angry at Sheila. And Damon. And Caroline. Stefan. Even Elena.”

Bonnie shifted, guiltily under Jo’s prying eyes.

“Anger is _healthy_. My goodness, Bonnie, you were stuck in a Prison World for half a year and your friends –”

“Good evening, Miss Bennett. Miss Laughlin.”

The two women looked up in surprise. There had been no sound of a door opening. Or of footsteps walking across the empty bar.

The moment they saw the woman who stood above them, her posture ramrod straight, oozing old-time propriety even in her slacks and shirt, Jo and Bonnie sprang to their feet at once.

Lily Salvatore smiled, but her eyes on Bonnie were like ice. “I was out for a walk and I saw you through the window and I thought to myself, ‘I know her. That young lady broke my trust and _ruined my life_.’”

“I never meant to hurt you, Lily,” Bonnie said quietly, her magic rushing to her fingers. Slowly, she started edging nearer Jo. Something nagged at her thoughts, but she couldn’t think past getting herself and Jo safely through this moment. “I was only ever going back to get Kai. It’s over now. The Ascendant is no longer in my possession.”

“Surely we can retrieve the device and bring my family home?” Lily said, and there was a touch of desperation in her voice.

Bonnie shook her head. The idea of those _things_ getting loose was enough to make her skin crawl.

She was now close enough to Jo that her shoulders knocked against the other woman. She tried to move the few inches needed to shield Jo completely from Lily; but Jo must have realized what she was trying to do because she pushed back against Bonnie.

“Not with my blood. Not with any help from me or Kai,” Bonnie said coldly. “Your so-called family are monsters and we’re never letting them out.”

The veneer of propriety slipped off like a mask to reveal the monster beneath – red eyed, red veined and Lily lunged forward.

Bonnie was ready, her hands already curled up and aneurysm after aneurysm hit the vampire, making her scream and fall to her knees.

“It’s over, Lily. Let it go,” Bonnie warned, “and get out!”

Lily stretched out a hand to the table near her for support, her other hand still holding her head. She raised her head enough to stare at Bonnie with pain-filled eyes. “Your mistake,” she hissed.

Then her hand flew out and pain exploded in Bonnie’s neck.

Bonnie screamed and she grasped her neck, swaying, the spell breaking as the pain radiated like a spider’s web from her neck to every part of her body. There was something there – a dagger, a _pin_, and her blood was gushing through her fingers. She fell to her knees, her hand on the cold floor, the only thing keeping her from falling to her face.

She was suddenly choking and when she coughed, blood spurted out.

After surviving death twice, the agony of being the Anchor, a prison world and the psychopath it was built for, Bonnie Bennett was going to bleed to death on the floor of the grill from a fucking _pin_.

Lily’s steps were light, measured – still walking in that precise, finishing school trained elegance – as she stepped towards her. But she still had to go past Jo.

Bonnie heard the bride-to-be scream and tried to summon her magic but she couldn’t. She was in too much pain. She was losing too much blood. She couldn’t save herself. And she certainly couldn’t save Jo and her baby.

Too late, far too late, the memory of a nightmare gripped Bonnie.

_This is how I die._

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she felt the edges of her vision begin to darken. Above her, Jo and Lily were talking but Bonnie couldn’t hear them above the rush of blood in her veins. Her arm, the one that was keeping her face from the floor, was trembling now with the effort of holding her weight.

Finally her elbow slackened and she was about to land on the floor…

When strong arms caught her, lifting her from the ground.

Bonnie gazed up into a pair of stormy blue eyes. They were the last things she saw before the darkness overcame her.

* * *

Whatever dark reputation the Genovas bore amongst their fellow Gemini, cowardice was not one of their flaws. The family of three that had turned up with Matt Donovan earlier that day had seemed more in awe of being hosted by the Praetor himself, than they were afraid that Joshua’s mad boy would murder them in their sleep. It wasn’t Kai’s choice to have company, but the wedding of Joshua Parker’s long-lost daughter – who had resurfaced after nearly two decades and somehow managed to survive her Merge Ceremony – was the stuff of dreams for his gossipy coven and now that Joshua Parker had called the exiles back, every Gemini in the world seemed to be in Virginia this weekend. There was only so much magic could do about unavailable hotel rooms.

Kai left them pottering through his flat, and wandered the streets, his plans chasing each other through his mind. There were a dozen ways it all could go wrong, and a dozen more it could work and still blow up in his face. But he was too close now to back down and he needed…

He needed an outlet for the fury that had been building inside him since his first horror-filled night in 1903. Apparently one of the down-sides of pesky emotions was that it laced the feelings he was already so familiar with – rage, bitterness, the need for vengeance – with an added bite of hurt that elevated them to the power of infinity. Downside or upside, depending on which self-help book he read. Kai didn’t much care.

One way or the other, heads would roll for what had been done to him.

_And what about what you did to others? Whose heads rolled for that?_

_Shut it, Luke._

He turned the corner of an abandoned newsstand, and that was when he first felt the warm stirrings of recognition that he only ever associated with…

His steps faltered. No. They had managed to stay out of each other’s paths since their escape – _her rescue of him_ – from 1903, and it had been long enough that the thought of inevitably bumping into her at his sister’s wedding tomorrow plagued him with both dread and anticipation.

Not for the first time, Kai asked himself what _she_ would think about his plans – and not for the first time, he shut down that idiotic thought furiously. Like he gave a damn what she thought of him. Not anymore.

He turned on his heel, not interested in more self-torture this evening, when he recognized something else – her offensive magic spiralling all around her.

It was perverse the Pavlovian way everything in him snapped to in reaction to _that_.

Had no one ever taught the woman how to shield properly? He wondered furiously, as he turned back. Just to see, he told himself, what tomfoolery she had got herself into now. And maybe he’d lend a hand, or maybe he’d just conjure himself some popcorn and watch.

Her casting – an aneurysm, he recognized as he drew nearer and nearer to the source, the local bar – ceased abruptly. Even before he recognized his own twin’s aura and the way it radiated fear, he had already started running.

He burst through the doors of the bar, and the first thing he saw was Bonnie seconds from smashing her head on the floor. He caught her in the nick of time, lifting her into his arms. Later he would think about how light, how _right_, she felt in them, only the second time he had ever held her without trying to actively hurt her. But right now all he could think of was that she had lost so much blood she was almost as pale as him, and her pulse was an erratic bird beating in her throat.

All this went through his head as he whirled to face the person responsible for this, who was using his sister as a body shield. 

He briefly locked gazes with Jo, was surprised at the relief shining from her eyes, and then shifted to a few inches from her face.

Oddly familiar pale blue eyes glittered at him with malice. “Good evening, Mr. Parker. We haven’t been properly introduced although I have made several unsuccessful attempts to seek audience with you.”

Lily Salvatore, ripper.

It was amusing really, that they had never actually met until now. It hadn’t been so long ago that they were swapping jail cells, courtesy of her son and her son’s BFF, the witch she had just injured.

Kai couldn’t even savor the supreme ironic karma of it all.

Not when Bonnie was bleeding in his arms and a _ripper_ had his sister in the grip of her claws.

“Been a bit busy of late,” he hissed, “but you sure got my attention now.”

His mind was working double-time. He was silently casting a healing spell over Bonnie’s unconscious body; at the same time, he was trying to figure out an exit for all three of them – and coming up blank. Jo’s neck was in the grip of a madwoman and Bonnie’s lifeblood was spurting out of her throat like water from a tap. Kai was a gambling man but even he won’t risk these odds.

“You will provide me the Ascendant, Mr. Parker, or I will end the life of your pregnant sister,” Lily Salvatore warned.

Another irony. Kai had an Ascendant for her alright, just not the one she wanted.

He concentrated on the mental recitation of the spell, while holding steady eye contact with the vampire.

“You’re going to let my sister go or I will boil your blood where you stand,” he said conversationally.

She glared at him, her grip on Jo tightening. Jo’s eyes widened but they were more filled with anger than fear.

“You’ll risk your sister’s life?”

“It’s not a risk,” Kai said levelly, keeping his rage at bay, lying through his teeth and willing her not to call his bluff. Desperation was building in him. He could feel Bonnie’s essence slipping out of her. His spell was not working. Time was running out.

Lily’s brows shifted rapidly – apparently her equally odious son got that annoying habit honestly – as she visibly calculated her options; and then with a snarl, she flung Jo against the wall.

Kai’s hand reached out to break his twin’s fall – the distraction the vampire had obviously counted on to flee safely and flee, she did.

Jo slid slowly to the ground, landing on her tailbone with a little jolt. Then she was on her feet and running towards Kai and Bonnie.

He was already placing Bonnie on the floor beside him, folding her hands over her chest. She was so silent, so pale, so _cold_. She was still breathing… but barely. The bleeding in her neck had slowed but he didn’t know whether it was from his magic or because she had already lost so much blood.

His hands were shaking.

Jo knelt on Bonnie’s other side, across from him, and looked at him with horror on her face. “Kai…”

“Help me,” he snapped as he conjured what he needed – candles, chalk, moss… They landed with a thump by his side.

“My doctor’s bag is in the car. Get that, too,” Jo said as she hurriedly started drawing the marks around Bonnie.

“I don’t need your medicine, Jo…” he hissed.

“I know you were trying to heal her while you talked to Lily and it wasn’t working,” she hissed back. “This is Sheila’s granddaughter. You do your magic. I do mine. _Now get me my bag!_”

He spared a moment to call for the stupid bag. It came flying through the door of the bar, smashing the glass to land beside his sister. Then he started pouring everything he had into calling back Bonnie’s essence.

It wasn’t working.

Kai’s heart was pounding from exertion, his chanting quivering a little by the twentieth iteration. A drop of blood landed on Bonnie’s shimmery pink blouse, then another. Jo raised her head from staunching Bonnie’s neck wound and pointed a shaky hand at his nose. He touched his face instinctively and noted absentmindedly that it was wet, and his fingers were now red.

He felt faint. But whether that was from the magic he was expending or from feeling Bonnie’s life slipping away, he couldn’t tell. 

“What’s going on?”

The twins turned to look at Elena Gilbert walking into the bar with her phone in her hand and confusion on her face.

Kai stretched – more like flung – out his hand and dragged the vampire with magic. She skidded to a stop on her knees beside Bonnie.

“What the –” she yelled then froze at the sight of Bonnie. “Oh my god, Bonnie!”

“Your blood. Now.” Kai snarled but even before he finished, Elena had already torn out her veins and was pushing her wrist into Bonnie’s mouth.

Kai’s eyes were fixed on Bonnie’s face, waiting for the colour to return.

It didn’t. Her breathing was so faint now, he couldn’t hear it. He could only tell from the infinitesimally slow rise and fall of her chest. She was fading.

Jo’s phone was in her hand and he could hear, distantly like from a radio in another room, her conversation with the 911 dispatcher.

Elena pulled her wrist back, horror on her face. “Bonnie!”

“Give her more!” he shouted, pushing her wrist back down.

“It should be working by now,” Elena cried, yanking her hand back. She bit through her wrist again – the wound had healed – and returned it to Bonnie’s mouth. Blood bubbled past her lips. She should have been choking on it.

_No._

The vampire made a sound that was between a gasp and a wail. She was staring at the twins with horror on her face.

A split second later, Kai realized why.

Bonnie’s heart had stopped.

_No. No. No. No._

Jo’s hands were pushing Elena’s wrist away, and she was tipping Bonnie’s head back and breathing into her mouth. “Elena, her chest.”

In a blur of movement, Elena was on the other side, now kneeling beside Kai and bent over Bonnie with her hands locked on her chest in the style he vaguely recognised – what must have been eons ago – from Jo practising on him. 

They were counting. Jo’s face determined, Elena’s desperate.

There was a storm in his head. Water crashing and dying against the rocks beneath. He watched them with a sense of surrealism. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.

_No._

The windows started cracking, tiny little slivers that they barely heard over their own bated breathing, until they shattered and burst, glass flying every which way.

Jo and Elena looked up then, wide eyes full of fear. But, Kai noted absentmindedly, they didn’t lose count, they kept going at the CPR.

Bonnie’s body spasmed under his sister’s and the vampire’s ministrations but otherwise, she was still. The delicate features of her face were frozen in a way he had never seen before, not even the times in the 1994 prison world that he had spied sleeping, in the months before he made his presence known to her, when he thought his fascination with her had only lied in the fact that she was the first living, breathing person he had seen in nearly two decades, and his ticket out of his hell.

_Bonnie_.

The upturned tables slid across the room, smashing into the walls.

“Kai!” his sister shouted. “Control!”

He climbed to his feet, his hands rising to grip his head, his fingers tugging at his hair. The chairs climbed up with him, into the ceiling and bounced off it, smashing into the ground. A storm was rising in the bar, wind whipping from the centre and catching the debris around it in a narrow cyclone.

“_Get out!”_ Jo screamed.

No. He couldn’t leave Bonnie. Not again. Not this time.

As if she could read his mind, his sister shouted, “You’re not helping her by being here, Kai. You have to go!”

She was right, a small sane part of his head realized, watching that cyclone get wider and wider. Very soon the debris would be smashing against the people that were fighting for Bonnie’s life.

_Bonnie_.

He stared at her tightly shut lids and it hit Kai like a moving train would hit a jumper – the thought that it was very possible he would never see those fiery green eyes open again.

He turned on his heel and fled.


	4. May 2013 / Whitmore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8

** May 2013 **

_ Whitmore _

“Bonnie… Bonnie, wake up!”

In the early hours of the day that would end with a wedding and a massacre, it was fitting that Elena Gilbert woke up Bonnie Bennett from a nightmare.

Bonnie sat up, her eyes wild as they latched onto Elena’s face. For a moment, what Bonnie saw was not the tear-streaked, anxious face of her oldest, dearest friend but a tall, dark-haired female vampire looming over her; and reflexively, her hand stretched out, magic lashing at its target.

Elena fell to her knees, holding her throat with one hand, gasping for breath.

“Bonnie, it’s me!” she managed to choke out.

It took Bonnie a moment before she could realise her mistake. _Not Lily Salvatore. Elena. Not a vampire. Elena._ Then she pulled back the spell with a little scream. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry! Are you OK?”

“I-I’m fine,” Elena croaked, standing up slowly.

Bonnie started climbing out of the bed to help her, when she realized that she couldn’t. Her arms were attached by tubes to medical equipment by her bed. With a start, she realized that she wasn’t where she assumed she’d be when she woke up in a bed – in her dorm room – but apparently, in a hospital ward.

“What am I doing here?” she asked, confused.

“Don’t you remember?” Elena asked hoarsely as she fell back into the chair by Bonnie’s bedside. “Jo’s bachelorette’s party? The bar? Lily?”

And slowly, it came back to Bonnie. She shuddered violently and clamped her hand on her neck. The skin there was smooth, unbroken.

“She attacked me,” she whispered, more out of anger than fear. “Even after I let her go and she…” Then panic hit her, but not for herself. “Oh my god, Jo!”

“Jo’s fine,” Elena said quickly. “She followed in the ambulance that brought you here.”

“Where’s she now? Is she safe? The baby?”

Elena laughed ruefully, her eyes shining. “The babies are fine. Jo’s fine. You’re the one we were all worried about.”

“What about Lily? We need to track her down. We only just got Stefan and Caroline under control-”

“Lily’s not your problem anymore, Bonnie. You’re not listening to me, are you? You were in the hospital all night.”

“I got blood from you, didn’t I?” Her brow furrowed. “Why am I even here?”

“Oh, Bonnie,” Elena breathed and in the next moment, she had enveloped Bonnie, tubes, wires and all, into a fierce hug. “I was so worried about you.”

_Why? Who’s in danger now? What new spell do you need?_ Bonnie wondered. “I’m fine,” she said, choking a little under Elena’s hair. “Can you…?”

Laughing softly, Elena pulled away. She sank back into her seat and wiped at her eyes.

In an effort to lighten the mood, and dispel her own bitter thoughts, Bonnie said glibly, “You can make up for your crazy future-mother-in-law by compelling a cute resident to check me out in the next five minutes. We’ve got to get out of here ASAP. Do you have any idea how many texts Caroline must have sent by now? She must be freaking out right now.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me!” Elena groaned. “Whose bright idea was it to let her take over the wedding?”

Bonnie cleared her throat loudly.

“That was a rhetorical question!”

Bonnie laughed and in a few moments, Elena joined her. After a while, they fell silent, and simply stared happily at each other as they shared a rare, peaceful moment in their supernaturally melodramatic lives.

And then it was back to business.

“So where is Lily now?” Bonnie persisted.

“I told you. Gone.”

“What do you mean _gone_?”

Elena looked at her uncertainly. “After she attacked you, Kai Parker was there-” She broke off, dashing quickly to one of the monitors in the room that had just given a shrill beep. She looked down worriedly at Bonnie. “Calm down.”

“I am calm,” Bonnie muttered, trying to even out her breathing that had hitched at the mention of _his_ name. “You were saying…”

“I don’t think-”

The door flung open and a group of medical staff, headed by Dr. Jo Laughlin rushed in.

“You’re awake!” she gasped.

The others started poking and prodding at Bonnie without so much as a by-your-leave.

Dr. Jo hung back, staring at Bonnie.

Bonnie smiled uneasily. “I think so. Ouch!” she cried, when a nurse stabbed her with a needle.

“Oh god,” Jo said softly.

The good thing was that they removed half of the wires holding Bonnie in place. There was another doctor with the others, and after he checked the monitors, he spoke to Bonnie softly, asking her questions about her name, age, the current President, and then asking her how she felt.

“I feel fine,” Bonnie said quickly. “I think I’m good to leave now.”

The doctor and Jo exchanged glances, then he turned back to Bonnie. “I’m sure you do but I’m going to ask you to stay for a few more hours. You gave us a real scare, young lady. These machines tell me you’re fine, and everything checks out so we’ve unhooked you a bit but I’d like to run some tests before you leave and you’re going to get a few more hours of rest.” When Bonnie started talking, he waved her silent. “I know you have a wedding to go to, but trust me, I think the bride will understand.” He winked.

After a few minutes, the rest of the crew left. The doctor lingered at the door. “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve seen some medical miracles but yours takes the cake. I don’t know if you’re a religious person, but you definitely need to check in with your Guardian Angel sometime today.”

He chuckled to himself. While Bonnie was still staring, he turned to Elena with a parting shot. “Ms. Gilbert, are you on call today?”

Elena shifted nervously. “Just staying with my friend, Dr.”

“Visiting hours are over,” he said sternly.

“Oh, let her stay,” Jo said, speaking up for the first time since she stepped into the room. “She’ll know not to wear her out.”

“She’d better. Miss Bonnie needs to rest. Next time, there’s a spike, Ms. Gilbert, I’ll have you thrown out.”

He left and Elena made a face at his departing back, making Bonnie giggle a little.

“I saw that,” Jo said sternly, but absentmindedly. She came to stand by Bonnie. Her face was filled with wonder as she looked down at Bonnie, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

Bonnie fidgeted a little under the scrutiny.

“I really am fine.” She snorted. “Medical miracle, huh? More like vampire blood.”

“Yeah,” Jo said slowly. “That was probably it.”

She bent down and carefully, navigating through the wires and tubes, gave Bonnie a hug. When she straightened up, her eyes were shining. She looked away quickly. “Gotta get ready for a wedding. You take care, Bonnie.”

“Bye Jo,” both girls said softly.

Bonnie turned to Elena when the door closed. “What happened to me last night?” she asked at once.

“I told you. Lily attacked you. We thought you won’t make it.”

“But I did.”

“Obviously,” Elena said with a shaky smile.

Bonnie shook her head, confused. There was something more to all this.

And Elena hadn’t answered her question about Lily’s whereabouts.

She asked her again, leaning forward earnestly. “Look, I need to know or I’ll just imagine the worst.”

Elena sighed. “She’s been banished to the 1903 prison world.”

Bonnie fell back against her pillows. “Oh.”

Elena was staring at her worriedly, as if she expected another of Bonnie’s monitors to start beeping.

But Bonnie merely said quietly, “so that’s over, then.” She exhaled heavily. “The whole trip might as well have never have happened.”

_The whole trip should never have happened_ whispered a treacherous voice in Bonnie’s head.

“Not really,” Elena said hesitantly. “I got the Cure. I’m not sure Damon would have given it to me if she hadn’t made him.”

Elena had been doing that more and more of late, Bonnie managed to observe despite the thoughts swirling in her head. Speaking with a candidness about Damon, and her relationship with him in a way that Bonnie had never known her to do before.

“So, what did you decide?” Bonnie asked. She reached over and touched Elena’s cheek.

Even before her fingers made contact with warmth, Bonnie realized it. In truth, she should have realized it from the moment she woke up, and saw Elena, felt her presence. But she had got so used to Elena’s aura as just hers, not a vampire’s or a human’s, just _Elena’s_ that it didn’t quite dawn on her until this moment.

She sank back into her pillows. “You did it,” she breathed. And now that Elena had actually done it, it struck Bonnie that a part of her had expected her friend not to go through with it. “You took the Cure.”

“You sound surprised?”

“I don’t really know why,” Bonnie admitted. “I mean, you’ve wanted to be human again since the moment you became a vampire.”

_I should know. I died the first time I tried to Cure you. Before then, I helped build the spell that killed your father so that you won’t wake up as a vampire after Klaus killed you. So I don’t know why I’m surprised you took it after a little second-guessing. Heck, you even managed to spare a few seconds from your night of ‘worrying’ over me to swallow it down. _

The angry voice wasn’t a complete stranger to Bonnie. She had first started hearing it during those months of isolation in 1994, when reflection had led to despair. But then she found Damon’s map – _hah! _the voice said now – and found her way out of that prison and the voice had seemed to quieten when she returned home.

If she were honest with herself, Bonnie knew that the voice hadn’t completely left her in those early days. It had whispered to her when the morning after her return from 1994, Elena had asked her to babysit Caroline at the rave. It had rumbled at her when Damon had orchestrated that vomit-inducing encounter with Kai at the same rave. It had muttered the morning that he had appeared in her dorm, demanding her help with his mother.

But when she had been bending over Kai in the snow, holding her knife ready to strike – it had been quiet. And Bonnie had thought – hoped – that she had finally silenced it.

She hadn’t, though. But it had been quieter, only whispering words of uncertainty in the dead of night.

Then Jo told her that Kai couldn’t die, Bonnie had had to go back for him, and he had told her the truth – about her birthday, about Damon’s ‘rescue’ – and the voice had come rushing back in all its poisonous self-doubting glory. 

Elena’s eyes had taken a distant, faraway look. “So because I’ve always wanted it I should get it? How is that fair? No one gets what they want all the time. Life doesn’t work that way.”

Bonnie stared. “Why’re you talking like this?”

Elena looked down at the hands that were folded in her lap. “It just makes me wonder sometimes… if things don’t always work my way… usually at the expense of other people.”

_Damon’s hands around Abby’s neck. The cracking sound of her mother’s neck being snapped._

_Jeremy dying. Jeremy coming back._

_Bonnie dying. Bonnie coming back._

Bonnie looked away. “That’s ridiculous, Elena. You’ve suffered more than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“I used to think so. But now I’m not so sure.”

“What are you trying to say, Elena?” Bonnie said, getting irritated. “Do you regret taking the Cure or what?”

“No,” Elena said firmly. “I don’t.”

“Sure about that? Last night you sounded completely unsure of what to do.” 

“Last night _you_ seemed mad that I hadn’t taken the Cure already.”

“I wasn’t _mad_,” Bonnie said testily.

“Are you sure?” Elena snuck a glance at her from beneath her lashes. “Because I think you were. You’re also mad at me right now, aren’t you?”

“Why should I be?” Bonnie muttered. 

_Mad at you for second-guessing the reason why Expression drove me half-mad? The reason we all risked apocalypse to get the Cure for you? The reason your brother died? Why I died bringing him back to life? Suffered for months as the Anchor and ended up in Kai’s prison world?_

_Raised Silas who murdered my father?_

_Why ever would I be mad at you for that?_

She kept the words in her head, but she couldn’t keep the bitterness from her gaze – not if the dejection on Elena’s face was any indication.

Guilt battled with fury inside Bonnie, and confusion came out top. Why was she so _angry_? Yes, she was furious at Damon over the whole Kai affair. Damon hadn’t just hidden the truth from her – he had taken credit for her rescue when Jeremy and Kai - _Kai! _\- had done the heavy lifting. And to free his mother, he had lied to her and used her. Again.

But after the first flash of rage, it was almost a joke how unsurprised she was at Damon’s actions. Damon had just been Damon. He had not changed in the least, not really. It was Bonnie who had decided that he had, who had developed this idealized version of him in her head after four months of their time together. A version of him that simply did not exist in the real world.

He had given her no reason to believe he had changed.

Bonnie only had herself to blame for wanting to think he had.

But Elena…

Elena hadn’t known about Damon’s and Bonnie’s plans to trap Kai in 1903. Hadn’t even been meant to come along on that trip. Had explained to Bonnie in the middle of the massive blowout with Damon that she hadn’t known that Bonnie had been kept in the dark about the events that took place during her ‘birthday party’.

But at that time, Bonnie hadn’t cared and she had lashed out at Elena as well. They were reconciled now – something Bonnie was sure she could never be with Damon. Yet this lingering resentment, well, lingered. 

Why?

“Bonnie-” Elena whispered. She gave the at-the-moment silent monitors a worried glance.

Bonnie forced a smile on her face, pushing her confusing thoughts far into the back of her mind.

“No biggie, Elena. If you hadn’t taken it, I bet there are a million uses I could have found for the only known cure to immortality in the world. Or I could have auctioned it on the supernatural black market and paid off my student loans. Live rich as sin for the rest of my life.” Bonnie waggled her brows.

Elena managed a tentative smile. “Says the girl who has two trust funds and a college scholarship.”

“I kind of lost my scholarship when I died.”

“And all you have to do is give a name and number, and any one of a half dozen vampires would gladly compel it back to you. And talking of compulsion addicts, I don’t care what bonding experience you two went through in 1994 but please, don’t ever do that twitchy eyebrow thing again. That’s Damon’s thing. It looks ridiculous on him and it looks ridiculous on you.”

Despite herself, Bonnie snickered.

Elena rolled her eyes dramatically. “What’s even worse is that he thinks it’s sexy and I’ve never been able to break it to him that -.”

“Liv? Liv Parker?”

Elena cut herself off, to follow Bonnie’s gaze to the figure of Liv Parker, standing in her doorway, with the oddest look on her face as she stared at the two girls inside.

“Elena? Bonnie?” Her voice was hoarse.

“Liv?” Bonnie answered, echo-like. When Liv just kept staring, Bonnie and Elena exchanged confused glances.

“Are you OK?” Elena asked, slowly. “You look like if you’ve seen a ghost.” She chuckled uneasily. “Which isn’t figurative in these parts…”

“No, I…” Liv shook her head and the reflection of fluorescent light on her massive blonde curls almost blinded Bonnie. The white shock on her face had morphed into nervousness, which was an even stranger look on her. And considering that she had disappeared from Whitmore since her brothers merged and her twin lost – her presence alone was a bit of a surprise to the girls inside the room.

She stepped inside uncertainly. “I was looking for my sister. I went to her apartment and she wasn’t there… They told me at the desk that her shift just ended and I don’t know where Alaric lives…”

Elena stood up. “I can give you the address where she is.” Then she hesitated. “Only I don’t completely trust you, Liv.”

Liv blinked. “She’s my sister.”

“So you should have her number,” Elena countered.

Liv turned to Bonnie but the other witch’s face was blank. The blonde pursed her lips and tried to glare down the younger girls.

When it became obvious that they were not going to back down, Liv finally admitted, “I threw away my phone when I went on the run with my Dad. Everything I had on Jo was there. We and most of the witches in my coven just came out of hiding. Dad made us come back for Jo’s wedding. To show support. Apparently he and Kai have worked something out.” The look on her face spoke volumes about what she thought about _that_.

“So get her number from your Dad.”

“He doesn’t have it either.”

Elena and Bonnie looked at each other. Both shook heads imperceptibly.

Elena turned back to Liv. “Then you can come to the venue early and try to catch hold of her. Or wait until the wedding, and see her with everyone else.”

Liv’s blue eyes flashed. “What the hell?” Magic crackled at her fingers.

“Hey!” Bonnie snapped and both witches locked gazes.

The sparks around Liv’s fingers vanished. But the ones in her eyes were still there.

“Please,” she tried for placating. It sounded painful. “I really need to talk to Jo. It’s important.”

“What is this about?” Elena asked. “Maybe if you explained to me…”

“What’s so difficult to understand that I want to be there for my sister on her wedding day?”

Elena snorted. “Did you remember that Jo was your sister when you were trying to kill Kai Parker? When _he_ was trying to help us bring back Bonnie? Besides, you’re not always the most trustworthy person, Liv and you come from a really weird coven so forgive me if I don’t jump at the chance to reconnect you with my friend and mentor on her wedding day.”

“Wait a second… I’m the bad guy because I tried to kill _Kai_?” Liv sputtered.

“You knew Kai’s life was linked to the rest of your coven and you were going to kill him and everyone else anyway.”

“I was upset,” Liv said through gritted teeth. “My twin just died and I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Obviously.”

Liv’s face turned wrathful. “What happened? He did a few freebie spells for you vampires and he’s now everyone’s BFF?” She threw a poisonous glance at Bonnie. “Careful, Bennett. You’re dispensable now. Mega-powerful Gemini coven leader trumps self-tutored witch any-day.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bonnie replied at once but the barb had struck, and her voice didn’t sound quite as glib as she hoped. She felt Elena give her a look of concern, then turn to hiss furiously at Liv.

Liv raised a hand, staving the irate girl off. “As for you, Gilbert, _your _brother died and you and Rebekah Mikaelson racked up a massive body count when you went on your little Thelma and Louise trip from Virginia to New York. I would have thought that you of all people would have some freaking sympathy.”

Elena visibly wilted. “If you leave a number,” she conceded, “I’ll pass it on to Jo immediately, and she can decide to call you or not. That’s the best I can do for you.”

Liv glared at her but Elena straightened her spine, and didn’t waver.

In short violent movements that rattled Bonnie’s magic, Liv pulled out her purse, scribbled on a piece of paper, scrunched it into a ball and threw it at Elena.

She added a little juice to it, too because when Elena caught it, she yelped and dropped it.

“Ooops,” Liv said in the fakest way possible. “Let’s hope you have better luck catching the bouquet.”

She turned on her heel and slammed out the door.

“Bitch,” Elena muttered.

“Bitch,” Bonnie murmured at exactly the same time.

Then they looked at each other and burst out laughing.


	5. May 2013/ Mystic Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2

** May 2013 **

_ Mystic Falls _

With a few hours left before the Saltzmans’ wedding ceremony started, it wasn’t a good sign that the wedding planner was freaking out more than the bride. Apparently, no one had done Caroline Forbes the courtesy of asking her approval of the last minute changes to the event.Jo had done her best to explain to the irate vampire that as the daughter of the former Praetor, sister of the current one, and likely mother of the future one, Josette Parker’s wedding was the Gemini equivalent of a Royal Wedding. While she had been merely Jo Laughlin, estranged and prodigal daughter – and all the witches had been hiding from their new leader – the ceremony was entirely her affair, and it was going to be a simple event with Elena standing for her, and Damon standing for Alaric. But now the Gemini Coven had recently undergone some sort of reconciliation with their leader, and as a show of good faith, they had been given permission to essentially hijack his twin sister’s wedding. 

Caroline was having none of that. 

Bonnie was walking slowly through the chaotic event hall, searching for her friend with all the foreboding of a bearer of bad news. The floral contractor had called and Caroline would not like what they had to say. It was just one more thing cutting it close on an event that, according to Caroline, was already threading the line between a success and a disaster. As Bonnie weaved through workmen carrying ladders and drills, and supervisors yelling at the top of their lungs, Bonnie feared that the odds were on disaster.

She slowed even more as she passed a cluster of dusty hunks surrounding a site where a large chandelier was being hoisted, and spotted Elena and Stefan Salvatore in the distance. 

Elena was standing still with arms crossed; under her straight dark hair, her face was bowed and grave. In contrast, Stefan was uncharacteristically animated, pacing in a tight arc around her, arms gesticulating wildly as he talked quickly. Bonnie was too far to hear him but clearly, something was wrong and a few days ago, her curiosity might have been piqued enough to walk over. 

Now she did an about-face and walked _away_, praying that she wasn’t about to be dragged into cleaning up a new supernatural mess.

She searched, now more eagerly, for Caroline. Her friend was still nowhere in sight but Bonnie could see a trio of well-dressed women standing along the edge of the canopy that still lay on the open area. They were from a group of guests that had arrived early and that Jo had introduced to everyone earlier as ‘family friends from Portland’. Bonnie didn’t need that cryptic description to tell her what her own witch intuition had picked up first.

These were witches. Gemini witches. 

And finally, Bonnie spotted Caroline – and in the nick of time, too! Her friend was striding at almost vamp-speed towards the trio, with a look on her face that made Bonnie believe that a vampire-witch war was about to be declared.

Bonnie all but ran to her friend’s side, arriving at the start of a near-heated conversation. 

“There’s room for Liv to stand with her sister but that’s it,” Caroline was saying vehemently. “We can’t add any more places to the bridal train.”

“Unacceptable.” The sharp word came from a petite, matron-type woman. Her magical aura was taut, competent, and Bonnie could tell that she wasn’t someone to cross lightly. But even with that, from the steel in her gaze as she gazed condescendingly _up_ at Caroline, it was evident that she was capable – and willing – to set the vampire on fire. 

Behind her hovered two teenage girls – one dark-skinned, and slender with darkish red curls – and another white with straight black ponytails. Their auras hummed with magical proficiency that Bonnie envied to see in witches their ages. They looked about 15, 16 at most. 

“I’m sorry,” Caroline was saying in a tone that sounded the opposite of sorry, “but we’ve already rehearsed the stage arrangements. I hope,” she gave the two girls a smile that made Curly flinch and Ponytails bristle, “you girls aren’t too disappointed. You can be bridesmaids some other day.”

“These girls are not to be mere _bridesmaids_,” the woman retorted. “They are representations of the covenant between the coven and the _Regium_, portals in human form for ancestral invocation, essentials to the completion of the _Nuptialem orationem_ that will be cast on the candidates this night.”

Caroline blinked. “The what for the what in the what now?”

The woman looked ready to explode. “I cannot believe Joshua put me in this position, where I need to explain our rituals to a-a … _suc-_!”

Bonnie inhaled quickly, preparing for a quick intervention – Caroline looked like if she was about to vamp out – but the bride herself beat her to the punch. 

“Dame Bethany!” Jo all but shouted, appearing as if by magic between the warring factions. “You forget that not everyone has your flair of being a master of protocol. It’s really quite complex, even for me.” She laughed merrily. “I am beyond honoured to have your input in this, especially with such short notice.”

The older woman mellowed slightly. “Speak nothing of it. This duty usually falls to me and I always rise to the occasion. Which is why,” she said, eyeing Caroline, “this … _person_ … needs to step aside for m-”

Caroline took a menacing step forward. “Not on your-”

Her words ended in a muffled shriek when Bonnie daintily ran her heel into her best friend’s foot. 

“But we can’t spare you. There’re too many other things that need your attention,” Jo said sweetly. “Leave Tonia and Judi with me. Of course, they’re going to be in the ceremony.” – Caroline gasped – “Will the boys also be included?” She smiled at the teenage girls who were staring at her with mingled awe and terror.

The older witch sniffed. “Of course, they will. I’ll keep the children close, if you don’t mind. Too many _nefaria_ wondering around for my comfort.” She eyed Caroline balefully. Then she seemed to check herself. “On consideration, you keep them. I don’t want you or your father to swap them out of the ceremony at the last minute and give their places to some other family.”

Jo gasped. “We would never-”

The woman sniffed again. “It’s been done before. And bear you mind, Josette, the Stewart and the Genova families will not take the insult lightly.” She turned to the girls. “_Behave_.”

Once again, she had to stare up, but her face, her voice, and apparently her sheer personality was enough to make them look absolutely terrified at the idea of whatever would happen to them if they didn’t behave.

With one last smile at Jo, and one last withering glare at Caroline, and a measuring glance at Bonnie, she left. 

Jo smiled brightly at the girls who were now staring at her nervously. “Girls, could you go into my trailer, and try out your clothes?”

With a look of relief, the girls scampered off and the cheery mask on Jo’s face slipped off to reveal the strain under it. 

“Jo, you can’t seriously…” Caroline started warningly.

“Uh oh, Caroline, not you, too.” Jo groaned. “I have more than enough to deal with today with _her_ as my matron of honour.” She shuddered. 

“Jo, are you OK?” Bonnie asked worriedly.

“No, I am not. I can’t wait until this is over,” Jo declared. Then she peered at Bonnie. “How are you holding up? I was coming over to check on you.”

Caroline whirled on Bonnie. “Oh, Bonnie, I can’t believe I forgot to ask. Are you OK? Do you need some blood? Shouldn’t you take a seat or something?”

Bonnie tried not to flinch. It was not the first time that she had been drilled like this about her health that day. She supposed it made sense considering recent events – Lily Salvatore violently gate-crashing last night’s bachelorette’s party and Bonnie ending up waking up in the hospital – but she was simply not used to this degree of scrutiny and over-commiseration. Frankly, she was finding it unnerving. 

Especially now as Caroline vamp-sped to grab a chair and forcibly pushed Bonnie into it. 

“I’m fine,” Bonnie said, trying to stand, only to be shoved back in. “Seriously, Care!”

Caroline scowled at her. “I don’t know why you couldn’t just take the day off to rest and show up in the evening. And if you have to be here, why aren’t you even dressed?” She looked at Bonnie’s jeans and shirt with distaste

Bonnie glared back. “If I hadn’t shown up when I did, that old lady would have given you an aneurysm or worse!”

Caroline snorted. “Oh, please, I could take her.” She whirled at Jo. “Who the hell was that old bitch anyway? And why’s she suddenly the new wedding planner? I thought you asked me to run things when your old one cancelled?”

Bonnie and Jo shared a furtive glance. If memory served, what happened had less to do with _anyone_ asking Caroline – and more to do with Caroline showing up, seeing a vacancy – and putting herself in her favourite spot – in charge. 

But now was not the time to split hairs. 

“I explained to you about the Gemini being involved. Believe it or not, there was a lot of political manoeuvring that went on to get those girls in the ceremony. You just have to work around them, Caroline and … all the other changes.”

“What other changes?” Caroline shrieked.

Jo waved her hand dismissively, panicking Caroline further. “Caroline, just roll with it, OK? Half of this stuff won’t make sense to you anyway; if they want to change anything, let them. This ceremony is important for my father – and my brother.” She glanced at Bonnie when she said the last.

Bonnie was suddenly grateful for the chair Caroline procured. She felt like if a thunderbolt had hit her. She had been so focused on throwing herself into Jo’s wedding, a desperate effort to distract herself from everything that had been going on in her life recently that she had completely failed to realize what was now so stupidly obvious. 

_He_ was going to be here. How could he not be? It was his sister’s wedding, a now-Gemini affair, of which he was leader. For the first time in the weeks since they returned from 1903, Bonnie was going to come face to face with Kai Parker.

In real life, at least. Because in her dreams – nightmares, he was _always_ there. 

“It’s your wedding, Jo,” Caroline said furiously but Bonnie could barely hear her; her friends’ voices, and the sounds of the hustle and bustle around them drowned out completely by the storm in her own head, by his voice – from memory, from nightmare – mocking her in her head. 

_“You and I are even now.” _

_“Do you think you could keep screwing people over and getting away with it?”_

_“Believe me, I’ve changed_ _…_ _” _

_“Your magic can’t protect you from me.”_

_I LIED._

The last wasn’t a memory of anything he said, but of what he left her on his pager, the LED symbols flashing mockingly at her as she woke up, soaked in her blood and completely alone.

Bonnie could almost smell wet iron, almost hear the roar of silence that had been her constant companion for five months. She felt sweat pouring out of her skin, and told herself to snap out of it, but the bottomless pit of weeks of suppressed emotions was suddenly yawning open, threatening to swallow her  …

“Bonnie.”

The impeding panic attack receded as abruptly as it started, and Bonnie stared up at Elena’s worried face – and a whole crowd of people. Stefan Salvatore, his face stark, Caroline and Jo, their faces anxious, were all peering at her. Bonnie blushed, embarrassed, especially when Stefan’s eyes seemed to blaze at her; then he looked away, mumbled something and walked off.Caroline turned to watch him go. 

Elena gave him a worried glance, but her eyes went back to Bonnie.

“Are you all right?” she asked, her newly warm aura shimmering with concern.

Bonnie nodded, squeezed out a smile. “Of course.”

“I told you she should have stayed in the hospital,” Jo said, as if Bonnie hadn’t spoken.

“It’s not too late,” Caroline said, staring at Bonnie with a glint in her eye.

Hastily, Bonnie burst out the bad news she had previously been dreading to deliver. “The floral contractor’s truck broke down. They can’t promise to deliver the flowers on time!”

The effect was instantaneous. Caroline let out a scream, then she yanked out her phone and started punching it like if she was loading bullets into a revolver. Jo threw up her arms in the air and cursed. Elena started firing out alternatives. Caroline shushed both of them, all but shoving them away to give her space. As if on cue, one of the contractors that had apparently been hovering near all this while, approached Jo and after a few words, she and Elena walked away with her. 

Elena threw Bonnie back one more anxious glance which Bonnie returned with a big toothy smile – that vanished the moment Elena turned her back. 

Caroline was good, Bonnie thought from her own vantage point in her chair. In a few minutes, she had come up with a Plan B.

“Great. We’ll pick them in 5. Do _NOT_ screw up again or I will _END_ you.”

She shut off the call. Bonnie jumped to her feet. “You need someone to get the flowers? I’ll go.”

Caroline frowned. “I was going to ask Matt to do it, and I don’t think you’re up to –”

“Up to what? Leaning against the truck and pointing while Matt carries the bouquet? You know you can’t send him alone. He won’t have a clue what he’s supposed to bring along and there’s no time for any more screw-ups.”

Caroline hesitated. “I should probably ask Elena.”

“Care.”

Bonnie’s sudden grave voice clearly startled Caroline. The two girls locked gazes.

“I _need_ to do something. Don’t put me on timeout.”

Caroline nodded slowly, understanding passing over her face. She of all people should get it. It was barely twenty-four hours that she had turned up from wherever she had been hiding out since her humanity came back, and Bonnie knew half of the reason that Caroline had thrown herself into organizing Jo’s wedding wasn’t just because she was a control freak. 

It was in the moments of ‘peace’ that the demons inside shouted the loudest. 

“OK,” Caroline said with a sigh, then laughed when Bonnie hugged her. “One more thing, though.” She fished out a small case from her purse. A groom’s cravat. “Matt’s over at Alaric’s. Please make sure the blushing groom gets this. Apparently he forgot to pick it up yesterday.”

Both girls sighed and rolled their eyes in tandem. _Men_. 

“Make sure Matt toes the line. Er … also, don’t tell Elena … She’ll probably freak out if she finds out you’ve gone.”

“Elena’s probably doing a mini-rehearsal now with Liv Parker and the new bridesmaids.”

“They’re not bridesmaids,” Caroline corrected dryly. “They are representations of the covenant between the coven and the _Regium_, portals in human form for hocus pocus mumbo jumbo.”

Both of them laughed, and Bonnie felt her heart lightening. “See you around, Care. Try not to kill anybody from Jo’s coven.”

“I make no promises,” Caroline said darkly.

But Bonnie was already punching her phone for Matt’s number, walking away rapidly, and telling herself that after getting the flowers with Matt, she had every intention of coming back for the ceremony, every intention of actually standing in the same space with Kai Parker and spending all of it wondering when he was going to try to kill her again.


	6. May 2013 / Mystic Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5

** May 2013 **

_ Mystic Falls _

Bonnie rang the doorbell and waited.

It was a few hours before the wedding and she had jumped at the chance to run the errand and escape the bride’s camp. At first it had been nice to have her friends hover over her so solicitously, but after a while it had put her on edge. So last night’s bachelorette party had ended with her spending the night in the ICU.That was a day in the life of Bonnie Bennett.

It was not like if she had actually died.

Alaric answered the door. He looked exactly the same, right down to the facial hair that wasn’t sure whether it wanted to be clean-shaven or a beard.

Bonnie brought up a mental image of Jo that morning in the middle of hair stylists, pedicurists and the makeup expert that Caroline insisted needed to be there.

The men had it so easy.

“Here you go.” She pushed the box into his hands. “Your cravat.”

His face reddened. “Oh my god, I was supposed to pick this up yesterday.”

“I know. Or rather, Caroline knew. The person that doesn’t know is Jo. So you owe us big time.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

He laughed. “I’ll remember.”

She peered around the room. A few beers were on the table, and what appeared to be a ring box. Other than that, it didn’t look like the house of someone who was about to change status or make any other major life-changing decisions.

“Should you be up and about after last night?” he asked.

Bonnie sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way but I’m really tired of telling people that I’m fine. Is Matt around?” she asked quickly, both to get to the task at hand and to stop him from poking. “We’re supposed to pick up the flowers together, some hitch with the floral contractor.” She also had another errand in mind, a thought that had taken shape in her mind as she drove here, but she didn’t feel the need to share that with Alaric. 

“He just stepped out with Tyler for some…” Alaric coughed. “Refreshments.”

_More beers, you mean_, Bonnie thought while keeping her face as straight as possible.

“He’ll be back soon. You wanna wait?”

“I guess,” she said, a little uncomfortable now. She and Alaric hadn’t really had much to say to each other since she came back.

He nodded and made a show of tidying up a little while she perched at the edge of the sofa. He came to sit across from her, still holding the cravat box in his hands.

“Thank you, Bonnie.”

She smiled. “No biggie. I was coming to get Matt and the flowers, anyway.”

“Not for this,” he chuckled, then coughed a little. He looked both serious and nervous.

Bonnie shifted, guilt and confusion seeping through her. “If it’s about going back for Kai, I only did what I had to do. You don’t need to thank me.”

“Oh god,” he whispered. “I have to thank you for that, too.” He slapped his forehead and his shoulders shook slightly.

How much exactly had he had to drink? “Alaric, is everything OK?”

“Everything’s great, Bonnie!” he said, still chuckling. Yeah, he definitely had had one too many. “Everything’s fine. And it’s because of you.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“I… I was dead, Bonnie. I died. But you brought me back. You were in pain, you were dying but you still tried to bring everyone back. Jeremy said, you saved everyone but yourself. You didn’t have to. You could have lived a little longer if you hadn’t. But you brought me back to life. I found Jo. I _have _Jo. We’re going to have kids. Can you imagine me, a Dad?”

Bonnie nodded, swallowing against the lump in her throat. She could actually. She could imagine it very well.

“I got a second chance at _life_, Bonnie. How many people can say that? And it’s all because of you.”His eyes were shining.

“I…” She swallowed again. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Now, I also have to thank you for saving my horrible brother-in-law and keeping Jo and my children alive. When I think about when Damon asked me-” He made a face and wiped his eyes. “When Jo told me what happened yesterday, how close we all came to losing you. _Again_.”

“I think everyone’s getting a little carried away over what happened last night,” Bonnie muttered, slightly mortified.

Alaric continued like if he hadn’t heard her. “I owe you, Bonnie. Anytime. Anyday. Anything. OK? Remember that.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” she whispered. Her heart was actually aching a little bit.

Alaric shook his head, wiped his face again.

Right on time, the door opened and she heard Matt’s and Tyler’s voices. “We got the beers. We got the good stuff. We got- _Bonnie_!” Their garbled song ended with a high-pitched exclamation point.

Before they caught sight of her, they had been waving two six-packs like pom-poms. Bonnie relieved them both of their burden.

“You guys, I think Alaric’s had enough. If you don’t want Jo… No, if you don’t want _Caroline_ to come here and whoop all your asses, you’d better start brewing some coffee. STAT. Not you, Matt, you’re coming with me.” She peered into Matt’s slightly hazy blue eyes. “Are you sober enough to drive?”

He and Tyler exchanged scoffing glances. “I got us back here, didntcha?” He boomed into Bonnie’s face, smelly breath and all.

Bonnie nearly gagged. “We’re going to stop at the local Starbucks.” She started dragging him along.

She caught a glimpse of Alaric’s face staring at her and she smiled back tentatively, her heart so full she almost couldn’t breathe.

“Come on, Bonnie. Just one beer,” Tyler whined as she slammed the door behind them.

It took two coffees and one stop at the flower shop, but Bonnie was recovered enough from the weight of feeling that Alaric’s unexpected gratitude had filled within her; and Matt was sober enough, for her to tell him what was on her mind.

“Visions about Kai, Lily and the heretics?”

Bonnie shrugged. In the warm, clear light of daytime, it all sounded a bit melodramatic.

But when was the last time her life _wasn’t _ever melodramatic?

“Sometimes all of them – Kai, the one with red hair, the big blond. Sometimes it’s just the heretics. Sometimes, it’s just Lily. Sometimes… it’s just Kai.”

The dreams that only featured Kai tended to be slightly different from the rest. Bonnie felt her face heating up and pretended to stare at something out her window as they drove back to the event.

“If it’s been going on since you got back from 1903, maybe you were having premonitions of Lily trying to kill you? But Lily’s gone now,” Matt said. Then he made a scoffing sound. “I still can’t believe Damon and Stefan just let Kai send her back to the Prison World.”

“She abandoned them. She had found a new family. She tried to sabotage his relationship with Elena,” Bonnie hesitated. “She attacked me.” And even now, the last filled her with more surprise than gratitude. 

The events of the night before were still so hazy. She had woken in the hospital with Elena’s tear-streaked face hovering over her, then her friend hugging her so tight she swore her bones had bent a little. Even Jo had been spooked, acting as if Bonnie had _died_.

Bonnie shook the thought away. Her days of dying were far behind her.

Matt gave her a concerned look. “So if your dreams warned you about Lily, you think they’re still warning you about something else, right? You think the heretics are going to get out? That Kai’s going to get them out?”

“He has the Ascendant.”

“But you said that you _rescued_ him from the heretics. Why would he try to get them out? Why bother sending Lily back if he’s just going to release her family?”

Bonnie rubbed her hands on her face. “I don’t know, Matt. I just don’t trust him, you know? I’m just waiting for him to do something to pay me back…” She bit her lip and felt her heart tighten again, this time for a completely different reason.

She hadn’t seen Josette’s knife since 1903. By the time she had noticed it gone, Kai had left her, and anyway, Bonnie had far more pressing matters to worry about. But since then, every once in a while, her mind would go to the knife. Had it dropped into the snow in 1903? Or had Kai taken it?

The same knife he had stabbed her with in 1994.

The same knife she had stabbed him with in 1903.

_Tag, Bonnie. You’re It._

She clasped her sudden shaking fingers together. “I’m just waiting for him to pay me back,” she repeated.

Matt nodded. Then he hit the brakes, and turned the car in a U-turn so abruptly that Bonnie rocked into her door.

“What the-?”

“He lives in an apartment off town.” At Bonnie’s inquiring glance, he added, “Some of their people are crashing there. I think the kid is in Jo’s train. The local hotels are packed with Gemini so Alaric and I had to arrange lodgings for the extras.”

_That sounds awkward_, Bonnie thought. Although, she also thought, that was not quite as awkward as Jo sending out wedding invitations to the brother that carved out her spleen or the father that tried to murder her.

“If the 1903 Ascendant is there, do you think you can locate it?”

“I think so. Matt, you’re helping me with this? You believe me?”

“If Bonnie Bennett has a hunch, I’m not going to be the fool that ignores it.”

A warm feeling blossomed in her heart and the two of them exchanged smiles. Matt’s truck bumped along the road, racing against time.


	7. May 2013 / Mystic Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1

** May 2013 **

_ Mystic Falls _

The night of Jo’s wedding, Bonnie woke up to smoke and fire and screams.

And black magic.

It was thick in the air, thick enough to choke on. And it fed greedily on the fear and panic that surrounded her.

For a few seconds, she just lay on the floor, tired, so tired. Through the ground, she could still hear the screaming, the sounds of running feet, of distant explosions. 

This was happening. This was really happening. 

She had raced against time to get here and warn them. Yet despite all their plans, despite all their precautions, despite all her prayers and sacrifices … she was too late. 

She was tired. Maybe she should just stay down, wait for it to be over.

Wait for them to come and kill her. 

Then a familiar face flew into her vision and all thoughts of rolling over and dying fled from her.

“Kai!” she screamed, panicked, and her hand flew out instinctively. 

He caught the _motus_ with reflexes that would have impressed her from anyone else and sent it harmlessly into the air. Before she could incant again, his hands were wrapped around her shoulders, dragging her to her feet and immobilizing her magic. She knew that it only took the slightest pressure and her magic would be ripped out of her painfully.

You only got one chance against Kai Parker and she had used up hers.

“What did you do?” she shouted into his face.

A trickle of blood ran from his temple to his chin, and his formerly impeccable suit was stained with more blood and soot. His grey eyes narrowed at her, looking as furious as she felt. 

“What did _I_ do? Do you think I did this?”

Before she could respond, there was a whistling sound beside them. He whispered something and they slid three meters across the floor. A second later, the grand piano landed on the space they had been standing in.

Bonnie jumped and his grip on her tightened, painfully. 

“Let me go … ”

“KAI!”

Both turned to see Joshua Parker rushing towards them, his suit and beard covered with soot, magic pouring out of his hands. 

“We need you! They’re trying to breach the Southern Portal! If one of the anti-cloaking barriers come down…”

Bonnie gaped at him, then gaped even harder at Kai when he said, “OK” and while she was still trying to understand what the Hell was going on, Kai was shoving her at his father. 

“Get her out.” He said to the older man. 

“I don’t have time to-”

Kai grabbed his father’s sleeve. “I need her to not be here.”

Joshua frowned, about to speak, then must have seen something in Kai’s face that silenced him. “I will.”

Kai gave her one last look, his eyes full of things she couldn’t begin to decipher, then he was gone.

Joshua Parker’s hand was wrapped around her elbow and she was being dragged along beside him as he cut a path through the chaos of twisted furniture – and broken bones. Both littered the once-beautiful wedding hall.She could make out figures in the crowd: witches and warlocks in their once-glamorous wedding clothes, hands outstretched and chanting, their magic curling through the air like white smoke. A flash of blonde curls caught her gaze and she stared, barely recognising Liv Tyler in a black dress, twirling like a ballerina as sparks of power poured out from her eyes and finger-tips. Around her a werewolf prowled, its teeth bared and stained with blood.

Then in the far distance, towards the south, red hooded silhouettes with black auras pouring from their beings. 

“There’s a portal on the Eastern side. We’re sending the younger children and the mundanes through. Come on,” he shouted at Bonnie who had dug her heels half-way across the floor.

“Not until someone tells me what is going on!” she shouted back, standing her ground.

“I don’t have time-” 

“Tell me!”

There was a small explosion to their right. Joshua raised his hand in time to deflect the debris from them. 

The older warlock glared at her. “The heretics attacked.”

_Too late_ _…_ _ Too late_ _…_ The phrase echoed in Bonnie’s head. 

“Elena?” _Caroline_ _…_ _ Damon_ _…_ _ Stefan_ _…_ _?_

“The doppelganger? She and the vampires left us to deal with this on our own.”

And left her behind, Bonnie thought then mentally shook it away. They hadn’t even realized she was here. She had got here seconds after all hell broke loose. 

“What about Jo? Is she-”

“Safe. Kai was right beside her. Made a path for her and Alaric to get away.”

Instinctively, her head turned, searching for him in the melee. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his magic, bursts of him sending shockwaves through the hall, under her skin. 

Had she been wrong? 

Joshua was still speaking. “The coven is taking heavy losses and I need to get you out of here. _Come on_, girl. I have to get back to the fight!”

Bonnie, turned back to him and shook her head. “I can fight.”

“I know you have magic, but leave this for the witches trained in combat.”

Bonnie would have laughed if she wasn’t in a life and death situation. “I have seen combat. And I am a Bennett.” 

Joshua Parker turned at her, his face registering shock. “What?”

Above them, there was a creaking sound. They moved just in time to dodge the chandelier that fell with a shatter of glass and wires on the floor. Joshua raised his hand but Bonnie was faster. 

The shards of glass stayed up, suspended in mid-air. Then they swirled into a cluster in the shape of an arrow and went spinning towards the south side of the hall.

A high-pitched shriek filled the air. Bonnie waved her hand and then it stopped. 

She looked at Joshua Parker’s frozen face.“I’m Bonnie Bennett,” she repeated. “I’m Sheila’s grand-daughter. I can help you.”

“My son asked me to get you to safety,” Joshua said uncertainly.

Bonnie finally twisted out of his grip. “I’m not a Gemini. I don’t take orders from you or your son.”

The old man’s lips twitched. He nodded. “Try to get to the stage. That’s the best vantage.” His lips twitched again. “Stay away from the south side. The coven leader is probably there.”

Then he left her, his arm already rising up to shoot a spell from his index finger. 

Bonnie stared up at stage. She could make out two young witches, standing back to back, working magic and shooting it up at the sky. A red-robed figure was bearing down on them, mouth snarling with curses. 

She started running.


	8. May 2013 / Mystic Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2

** May 2013 **

_ Mystic Falls, 1903 _

The red-clad figure was rising. 

The headless heretic was standing. Stood.

Horror was a bottomless pit opening in Bonnie’s stomach as the creature she had just decapitated five minutes ago, stretched out its hands and caught the head that flew into them.

_It can’t be. _

When they were children, and the girls still played with dolls, all three of them – Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline – had one day got into a fight with Jeremy Gilbert and with some clever lying, put most of the blame for it on him. The next day after school, they had gone to Elena’s house and seen their My Little Pony dolls lined up on the bed with their heads ripped off.

Watching the heretic carefully place his head back on his shoulders, the red sizzle of magic as it sealed seamlessly into place, the red coat of blood on its neck the only sign of what had happened before – was like a macabre call back to that day. 

_I took off its head!_

_‘Suckers don’t die easy.’_

_Yes, but not that they couldn’t die at all!_

The eyes blinked open, dark fathomless pools of swirling black magic, and Bonnie felt her brain breaking as she watched its lips part in a chant, a hand stretched out at her.

_How do you kill something that can’t die?_

She was tensing to push back the hex – the only thing that she could manage to think of at the moment was to send its own magic back at it – when something slammed into her side and she went down, rolling across the floor in a tangle of legs and arms.

She came to a stop with her back on the floor and her attacker on top of her and for the second time that night, Kai Parker was in her face.

“What the hell are you still doing here?”

She was too dazed to answer. She pushed back at his shoulders but his whole body was locked around her own. 

“Get off me,” she managed, weakly.

“I told you to get out. I told my –” he breathed hard, then turned his head and cursed loudly. 

Bonnie shifted, trying again to push him off her but it only seemed to make her _fit_ into him some more. She shivered, and it must have been a mixture of her fury at him and the adrenaline running through her veins that made her feel so enflamed. 

He turned back to her and his eyes were smouldering. 

“Stop that,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.

“Let me go, Kai,” she said weakly.

“Oh, I will,” he snarled.

She blinked and the chaos of the wedding hall vanished.


	9. May 2013 / Whitmore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4

** May 2013 **

_ Whitmore _

If not for the sudden silence that surrounded her, she won’t have even been aware that they had ported. Her body was still locked in Kai’s arms, his broad shoulders blocking out both light and air.

His body was heavy on hers, his bloody, brooding face inches from her own. For a moment, they were both still, staring at each other. Then her brain kicked in and she shoved hard with her hands and with magic. She was a little surprised that he yielded, falling back to a crouch before her. She skidded backwards as fast as she could until her back hit something hard.

That was when she managed to look round and register the familiarity of her surroundings. They were in her college dorm room. She had backed into the foot of her own bed.

The room was empty of everyone except Ms Cuddles who was sitting on Bonnie’s pillow, and Bonnie could swear that the bear was staring with a “_what the fuck is he doing here?_” look on her face.

Which was a very good question.

“What the hell, Kai?” Bonnie gasped. She glared up at the man who had brought her here against her will. Kai was already on his feet and she could feel the magic he was drawing into himself. He was getting ready to ditch her.

The bolt of power she sent at him was propelled with more anger than finesse, but it did the trick – literally tripping him up, and stopping his portation spell.

“Woah!” he yelled, hopping.

“Take me back, Kai!”

He smirked – he actually smirked – as he righted himself, smoothening down the black tuxedo that fit him like a glove, stained as it was with soot and blood. The blood on his face had dried there, his eyes were lit from the effort of recent magic, his jaw was set and Bonnie couldn’t help thinking that his bloody face was reflecting the madness of the mind within. Between his face and his suit, he looked lethal, more so than usual.

Her dorm room was large, luxurious really by any standard, but with him inside it, the room suddenly seemed very small, constricted almost like if his very presence had consumed all the air. 

Bonnie swallowed hard against the sudden dryness in her throat.

“You can drive yourself. Should take you about an hour in this weather. Oh wait, your car’s stuck at the venue. Uh oh.”

She glanced out then, and through the open windows, she could see the storm churning across the sky. And now that she was listening for it, she could also hear the rumble of distant thunder. All the stations had predicted clear weather this weekend. That was the whole point of the wedding being fixed for today.

But of course, none of the meteorologists could have predicted tonight’s magical showdown.

“I will Uber my way there if I have to,” she vowed.

Kai’s smirk wavered. “Is that some kind of portation spell?”

Bonnie blinked at him, and it took her a moment to realize that he wasn’t joking. Of all things to almost make her laugh now: Kai Parker, man out of time, still figuring his way around 21st century jargon.

It was her turn to taunt. “Possibly. _Phaesmotos uber_. Also, I’m a Bennett, remember? And no one can MacGyver as good as me. You go ahead, Kai. I’ll see you in five.”

His face hardened. “Don’t you dare go back there, Bonnie.”

Bonnie rolled her shoulders casually, infuriatingly. “Hurry along now. Don’t you have a wedding to get to?”

He took a step towards her, his face menacing and her smile slipped off, her heart jumping as she scrambled to her feet quickly, magic rushing to her fists.

He halted. His face twisted. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he growled.

“I believe you. Do you know why? Because I’m not going to _let_ you.”

“Did you miss the memo, Bonnie?” His growl was now tinged with exasperation. “The one in the form of Headless Horseman there re-attaching his head? In case you hadn’t figured it out: it wasn’t PWR that made those things indestructible back in 1903.”

PWR. Prison World Resuscitation. That had been the explanation, back in 1903, for how a heretic that they had watched get blown into pieces before their eyes, had been up and running mere moments later.

Apparently, they had been way off the mark.

For a split-second, Bonnie wasn’t in her warm dorm-room but in a winter wasteland, staring down into nauseating whorls of gold.

She couldn’t hide her shudder and Kai nodded grimly. “I know this is impossible for your brain to comprehend but I’m trying to keep you safe here.”

Her hackles rose at once but she held her tongue. The less she said, the sooner he’d leave and she could figure out her next move. But if he imagined she was sitting this out, he had another think coming.

His eyes narrowed at her silence. “Comprehend is another word for ‘understand’, or in case that’s also too hard, it’s also a stand-in for ‘get’. Do you get me, Bonnie?” 

Bonnie almost hated herself for rising to the obvious baiting but she simply couldn’t help it. He did that to her. “You’re right. It is impossible for me to understand that you’re up to any good. I _get_ that much.”

Kai advanced on her, his taller and larger build clearly intending to intimidate her. But Bonnie stood her ground, lifting her chin defiantly.

“This. is. not. your. fight,” he grounded out. His face was bent so close to hers that she could see the blood on his face was dry and flaky.“You know, the IQs of all your friends put together can barely make one functional brain but even _they_ figured out that much. They all took off first chance they got. They left you,” he added, for good mocking measure.

Bonnie recoiled, stung. “They didn’t know I was there! I was coming to warn them and your coven.” And _to warn you_, she added in her mind and that made her even more furious. That she had actually been _worried_ about him – for his coven’s sake, yes but still – this was the thanks she got?

“Yeah, I noticed,” he said, surprising her because at the time she got to the ceremony, she could have sworn he had half a dozen other more pressing concerns at the time.

A literal half dozen – six heretics all hell-bent on destroying his coven.

“Your timing could have been better but hey, it’s the thought that counts. By the by, however did you know they were out and coming to the wedding?”

And the question made Bonnie wary for a totally different reason. “What does it matter?” she muttered.

But he was already figuring it out, realisation fast dawning on his face. “Were you…? But of course, you had to be… _What were you doing in my apartment, Bonnie_?”

The question should have been intimidating. And it was, Bonnie insisted to herself. But it was also – the way he asked, his voice going low, his eyes glinting as he stared hard _through_ her own eyes, as if he wanted to pull out the memory from her head, so that he could replay for himself the image of her in his house.

She had a flash of memory from earlier that day – her own self, running her hands over his clothes, his bed. _For_ _ingredients for a spell!_ She snapped to herself. But it didn’t stop the sudden heat from rising in her face, or her own feet from stumbling as she took a step back, suddenly overwhelmed by his proximity.

He followed, closing back the gap and then entering her space. The back of her legs hit the bed and there was nowhere else to move. His scent filled her nostrils – a strange mix of blood, wood and brimstone that should have been repulsive but was strangely … not.

“Bonnie,” he said again, his voice still low. His eyes were now flickering from her face to the bed behind her and back.

The already thin air between them became even thinner. Feeling like if she needed to distract him from _whatever_ was going through his mind, she burst out quickly: “They were looking for you. To kill you. We tried calling ahead to warn everyone but…” She shrugged helplessly. “So I drove like hell to get to the ceremony on time to warn you.”

His face softened. “Well, on behalf of my coven, I thank you.”

He sounded genuine, even smiled a little, tentatively; he was so obviously mocking her.

A sarcastic retort was already on the top of her tongue when Bonnie caught his eyes and it died there.

His eyes were shining with something that in another person, she would have sworn was gratitude.

Warmth mingled with confusion rose inside her. He was mocking her, she told herself; he _had_ to be. Because even if – and it was a very big IF – Kai was ever going to thank her for anything – why for this? It was such a stupid thing to be grateful for – her attempt to help that hadn’t even succeeded; she hadn’t stopped the heretics from getting to the wedding; she hadn’t even got a warning to him in time. 

In the past, she had done far more tangible things for her friends than just a botched warning; and all she had to show for that was Elena’s increasingly absent-minded appreciation or a back-handed compliment from Damon.

Thankfully, this train of insidious, confusing thoughts was cut short by what he said next.

“But now, this is Gemini business and you’re going to stay out of it.”

Bonnie’s spine snapped straight, that momentary warmth chilled at the imperiousness in his voice. “No, I won’t. Not when I’m needed. Do you even know how to kill those things?”

“_Do you_?” he mocked.

Bonnie clenched her fists. “Stop getting in my way and I’ll figure it out.”

He looked like if he wanted to shake her. “I said no, Bonster! I know you get a turn on from putting your life in danger, but you’re going to look for cheap thrills somewhere else today!”

“Look the other way if you must, Kai but I am coming. And stop pretending that you give a damn about my safety.”

“I don’t give a damn about you in anyway,” he retorted.

“Perfect,” Bonnie said, baring her teeth in a mock grin. “So I’m coming.”

“I don’t want the bad karma of a Bennett, no matter how misguided this particular breed is, dying at my sister’s wedding.”

Bonnie couldn’t help it – she burst into laughter. Even to her ears, she sounded half hysterical and she could tell from the way he was looking at her, that he thought so too.

“You’re up against something you don’t know how to kill. I would have thought a coven leader would be desperate for any help he can get at a time like this. But instead, you’ve been wasting time here while your people are fighting, trying to persuade me _not_ to help. Makes me wonder what you’re really trying to achieve here, Kai.”

For the first time since they got to Whitmore, his face lit up with fury. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His tone was ominous, a clear warning to Bonnie not to answer – and obviously, a challenge that she wasn’t going to back down from.

“I’m beginning to wonder if you really want to save your coven. You’ve only been plotting to destroy for them for the past two decades. Maybe that’s why you’re so determined I’m not there to save them. Maybe that’s what this is really all about – an excuse to abandon them. Are you even going back there?”

His chest was heaving now; he looked angry enough to breathe fire. “I won’t even dignify that with a response. I don’t give a damn what you believe, Bonnie, but you stay out of this or I swear, I’ll-”

“You’ll what, Kai?”

If it were possible for a look to burn, his furious eyes would have turned her into ashes by now. She probably looked the same. For a long moment, they just glared each other down, neither giving an inch. They were so near now, they were breathing the same air. She could see the torn skin under the line of blood that ran from his temple to his chin. The incongruous thought flashed through her mind that he really ought to have that seen to. 

Then his eyes narrowed, the fury giving away to something cold, calculating. He stretched out his arm then, silent magic whispering, and Bonnie tensed, her own magic ready to set him on fire. But his hand went over her head – and Ms Cuddles, who had all this while been sitting on Bonnie’s bed minding her own business, came flying from her pillow into his grip.

Bonnie stared incredulously as Kai grinned at the bear. “Betcha thought you’d seen the last of me, huh?” he snarked, something like real fondness spreading across his face. Then his eyes fell back at her, hard and still calculating.

It hit Bonnie then, horror rising inside her.

“No,” she shouted – and the silent, automatic _Motus_ sent him flying across her dorm. She _vatosed_ the beds after him for good measure.

She scrambled to her feet and ran to her door, yanking it open and rushing down the corridor.

It was like something from one of her dreams. Her running down the dark corridors of her dormitory and Kai chasing her. She was looking back to see if he was following – and that was when she bumped into something tall and hard that had suddenly appeared in front of her.

Her breath went out in a whoosh at the impact, cutting off her scream. She tried to backtrack but his arm whipped round her waist, yanking her against his hard body. Panicked, she slammed her hands against his chest, pushing back for some much needed breathing room. She barely got an inch. His grip on her had absolutely no give.

She tried another _motus_ but he was ready this time, and it fizzled away into the air.

“No,” she panted, despairingly. “No.”

He waved Ms Cuddles in her face; the little bear had never looked so menacing. “You’ll get it back,” he said, his voice as hard as his grip. “It may not look like to your righteous mind but I’m doing you a favour.Consider this a freebie.”

Then her magic was rushing out of her pores. The first bolt of pain sent her reeling into him, and she felt his arms draw her close. But after that, the pain sank into a muted throb, to be replaced by a dizzy nausea that made her feel like if she was slowly dying. 

He was saying something, his words fast and angry, but she couldn’t hear over the roaring of blood in her head.

When the darkness beckoned, she stepped into it gladly.


	10. May 2013 / Mystic Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6 (2 scenes)

** May 2013 **

_ Mystic Falls _

The last thing Kai saw before he ported from the cool hotel suite was Bonnie’s irate face. So it was only appropriate that the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes to the scorching, deafening and bloody chaos that was his sister’s wedding was his father’s livid one.

The night kept bearing gifts.

“What the hell are you doing?” Joshua Parker shouted. His eyes were filled with horror.

Kai cracked his neck, held himself back from ramming his fist into his father’s face on sheer principle. “I took a detour fixing a problem I asked _you_ to deal with. What did I miss?”

His eyes were already sliding from his father, barely taking in the tapestry of magical violence spread before him, as he sought out the glimmering rings of the Portal. He spotted it almost at once, its glow lighting up the Southern boundary. Before it, he could make out a line of witches throwing hexes at a heretic that was repeatedly charging towards them, apparently trying to breach the Portal.

He had barely registered all this when a scream burst out from somewhere beside him. He and Joshua turned to see a witch fly across the hall, followed immediately by a creature in red. Kai threw out his magic, in tandem with his father and the heretic froze, then shattered into pieces.

“That’ll buy some time,” Joshua muttered then he turned to Kai and grabbed his sleeve. “Get out of here.”

Kai tried to take his arm back but his father held firm. “What the hell, Joshua?” he spat. “You don’t give me orders.”

“Where did I hear that before?” Joshua said irritably. “I don’t have time to deal with your ego, Kai. Leave.”

“So you can take all the glory and I live the rest of my days as the Praetor That Ran? No, thanks, _Dad_.” He snorted. “What’s the plan? Wait for me to scram, save the day and make me look bad? I’d bet good money you’re carrying an Ascendant on you.” He hooked his fingers in preparation for a summoning spell.

Joshua blocked it. “You foolish boy. _You_ destroyed the 1903 Prison when you let these things out.”

Kai reeled. “I… I d-”

“You might as well have! What possessed you to free the ripper?”

Not what, who. But of course, Kai wasn’t going to tell his father that. Or tell his father anything at all.

Not that Joshua was waiting for an answer; he was in full rant mode. “It would take months to build a new Prison to hold six heretics, and we’d have to trap them first.And as for _glory_?” he spat. “Look around you, Malachai!”

Kai did. Saw the glass littering the ground, the flames, the blood, the twisted knots of smoke hovering in the air that indicated spot-sites of magical duels – light against dark.

The bodies.

So many bodies.

And not one wore a red robe.

Even the creature they had just obliterated had vanished, probably re-awakening somewhere in the ether.

Kai fought back a wave of nausea – and guilt. Despite the still ambivalent feelings he held for a lot of the members of his coven, he hadn’t wanted _this_.

“Do you see?” Joshua said bleakly. “_We’re losing._ We’ve ported out the young, the old, the sick. Now we’re moving teenagers, the injured, those too weak to any longer. The rest of us will hold the line until they are through. Then we shut down the portals. This is not a battle. This is a massacre. Now get out.”

“I’m the most powerful person here and you’re asking me to run?” Kai asked incredulously.

“You’re holding the lives of every single Gemini witch in your unworthy hands and I’m asking you to _live_.”

Kai finally yanked his arm back. “I’m going to do more than that. I’m going to win.”

“Kai-”

“See those party crashers in red? I’ve a good reason to think that I’m the only one who’s qualified to bounce them. Besides,” buried fury lashed in his belly, “they welcomed me with open arms in 1903. I’d like to return the favour. Sorry to ruin your last stand, Dad.” He shouldered his father out of the way and jumped into the fray.

A pair of older witches ran past him, chased down by a red figure. He shot out a spear of power at it.

The woman’s red hood fell back and her long curls streamed behind her. Its tips lit up with flames that propagated along the length of her hair. She died screaming but Kai didn’t stay to enjoy the sight. He was racing south as fast as he could, towards the shimmering glow of the Portal, stopping now and then to lend a magical hand to any skirmish that crossed his path.

He finally made it within yards of the Portal, and now he could make out his own Livvie Poo, clearly in charge of the quartet of young envoys that guarded the Portal. She threw vicious hexes that made Kai proud but the scarred heretic before her, just bounced them back lazily, even though it could probably have easily taken down at least two witches. Kai hesitated, cloaked in the shadows, wondering what the ploy was.

Finally, one of Livvie’s hexes snuck past the heretic’s reflexes and the creature staggered back, choking – then charged forward with an angry snarl, flinging out a curse that would have killed off half of Kai’s living siblings. He threw out a hand quickly to block it – but someone was faster. The werewolf that he had not even noticed until then – launched itself onto the heretic, the curse catching on, and bouncing harmlessly from its immune body. The wolf buried its jaws into the heretic’s neck and both went crashing on the ground.

All eyes were on the macabre sight before then – and that was when the second heretic, clearly bidding its time all this while, charged.

Two envoys were on the ground before Kai could react. It reached for Livvie next – and his sister was still standing, frozen, too shocked or too slow to reach – when Kai sent a wave of power at it. It screamed as its skin tore, revealing blood and black magic, swelling obscenely until it exploded. Pieces of heretic fell to the ground. Livvie jumped out of the way with a yelp of disgust. It was only then that she looked around at her fallen friends and she let out a low gasp.

Her eyes met her brother’s as the wolf padded back to her with its bloody jaws.

“Go,” Kai said hoarsely. “Set up another Portal for the injured to the North. I have need for this one.”

She didn’t argue. Without looking back, she left, leading the surviving envoy and her wolf with her.

He ran up to the Portal, to the very edge where the magic threatened to pull him inside. Raising his arms up, he started chanting, channeling its power and transforming it at the same time. The rings on his fingers burnt as the rings of the Portal turned from their silvery blue glow to a dark, red blaze.

His arms were sore when he lowered them, but that was a small price to pay. The magic was already settling in the Portal. For the first time that evening, _finally _something was going his way.

He heard the whistle of a hex aimed at the center of his skull in the nick of time. He dodged it, and it shot into the Portal, turning the rings black for a moment, before they blazed back red.

He swirled to face the two that were materializing before him.

“_Malachai_,” snarled the peroxide-blond reject that Kai had ‘affectionately’ named Iceman.

“Nice to see you too,” Kai snarled back and threw lethal hexes from both hands in rapid succession. Iceman dodged the strike and the spell smashed into the ground, opening up a crater beside the heretics. The second heretic – Gingerdum – absorbed the magic with one hand and returned fire with the other hand. Kai flung out a shield but it went up a tad too late, and the edge of the hex struck just above his brow. Blood spilled into his eye, half-blinding him.

He staggered a little, blinking rapidly, but his shield was still up and the barrage of hexes that both attackers were sending merely smashed against it.

“_You will perish for your treachery_,” Gingerdum was ranting.

“You have no idea what that word means, do you?” Kai muttered.

He was curling his right hand into the shape for a bone-crusher, preparing for the pause to drop his shield and strike.

The moment came and he had the satisfaction of hearing bones snap and crackle. Another hex and he had shoved them both into the crater and yet another sealed them in.

He smiled. _This can still work_, he thought, as flexed his fingers, rings glittering in the light of flames and spells as he channelled his power...

And something flung itself on his back and sank its teeth into his neck.

* * *

** May 2013 **

_ Mystic Falls _

On the night of his sister’s wedding, when a heretic bit him, Kai screamed not so much from the pain but from the memory.

_Teeth. So much teeth. His magic. His blood. How much do they need? When will this stop?_

_Why can’t he just die?_

It was sheer reflexive power that shot out of his head and into his attacker’s. He felt more than he heard the pop of a skull imploding and then the gooey mess of heretic brains splattered on the back of his suit.

He fell to his knees, bile rising in his throat and he wanted nothing more than to hurl but he was already raising his hands up to push back Iceman and Gingerdum who had apparently crawled out of the literal hole they came from and were about to rush at him again; and Kai started laughing, half-hysterically, because it was more than ridiculous, just how badly his careful plans had screwed up…

Then hexes flew above his head, and both of them hit the heretics inches from his face. Blondie and Ginger shattered into dust and smoke.

A healing spell hit him in the back and a firm grip was pulling him to his feet. He turned to throw a grateful grin at the witch that had joined in the fight.

And took his father’s punch full in the face.

Kai reeled, but not before his magic flared out defensively and smote his father in the stomach. Joshua doubled over, coughing out blood while Kai hesitated, his hand up, his magic barely leashed and his head whirling in confusion. It was barely a few seconds of momentary pause, while the battle whirled around them, but it seemed to last forever.

Finally, Joshua lifted his head, and shouted through his blood-stained lips. “This isn’t about your stupid pride or petty revenge! You wanted this! You fought for it! You murdered your siblings for it! I locked you up in that Prison because I didn’t know how to kill you and yet you found your way back and stole it! Well you got it. Now. do. the. damn. job.” With each angry exclamation, he stood a little straighter, came a little closer. By the end, he was standing right in front of Kai and he shoved his son.

Kai shoved him back, both fists up as he glared at his father, his heart pounding with hatred.

Joshua held his ground and glared right back, his eyes brimming with contempt.

“You want to be Praetor? This is what it takes to be Praetor, Malachai. Putting your pride and your vainglory aside to _survive_ for the coven. _Look around you._ This is happening because you forgot your most important job. _Putting the coven first_. Now get out of here so I can clean up your mess the way I did eighteen years ago.”

He shouldered past his son and marched off.

Kai swallowed hard as he turned to watch as his father walked into the storm of smoke and magic.


End file.
